7 
Hues TPR Soatee ftHy 4 
idgesteas dated Pasi aiitiiagtets 
ft aasnt ee gaia beeltla 
fafil i § Hy thas tise 
Be HE. smi ie i: 
itl MAT AP Mit or aut Ns 
Hn HRS ALT ELPA LESL 


| 


i ui weds 


wcnaeooreanepats 


. 
by ba 
pened 3184 
. 4 
Sibtthed+ccannnil 
es 
a aes a) 
Sree 
= mr > 08, 
eee 
~t/=.*Rgamemoont 
i one 
ne egetens ~ 
ete 
~ 
: “ sare 
iia ~ 
oa 
* 
oe 
: 


HE 


iii 


HHUA citi! 


Whte , 
7 red f i } Pa or i 
nt | fA Pe pi 
i SD yan 
- Hi CPt agih  aeeD ri 
: 4 Ji : ; 
= Z ‘ VU a t fy * Aly 1 1 s y ry 
bs ft . ‘ J 
; " i i iy ; (i sig i 
tes hice oo et t, 
} 1 + } , 
q A vibe 
ra ey d' 
~ ' 
‘ ie | Dat % 
af i 
omr* is 
of ' - 
= 7 kf a 
t ~ ¥ ee 
< ‘ - 
and . 4 * 
1m : . 
+ ‘ " 
ij i 
y ; J e 
i ' , ; 
Od . 
i 
7 
4 ey 
7 i 
= rs 
= ‘ 
A - 
t : 4 e 
’ 7 2 
é sad i . ¢ ‘ 
f ‘ iY 
> é . 
us i ayy 
: 4 
uf Lo) ’ Ar 
= ’ 
i 
; $ 
im » 
- n oe 
' — °°, 
ae } . 4 
2 
Sez) 
- 1 
wy ’ n) 7 . 
q 2 Cee 
i 
; .. ' 
vu ‘9s 
‘ 
ni i 
j i ‘ Lis . > 
: ¥ i] 4 ~~ 


n, 
are eth, AS 


wits 
oa fi 
NATAL 


VA, 


NW j ‘ a 


one Mats) 
eye tils' 


“eS 


hi) 


s 7 f uy j 
hs vit 
f Hy Aue 


{ rive wr at 
Vols we fay 
an ah “ re; 4 
Lie Hi yen A 1ee4 0) ifn 
; f i tnd bac Si 
Foe Raids f Was) Te el ey 


A) Pd Ye 


| rat 45) he oa } De 
Ohl) sth. rhe Ld ar 
py Dr tee SA 
Rats CM 


, 


é 


eee j 
var ty 


ANNUAL 


OF 


SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: 


OR, 


YEAR-BOOK OF FACTS IN SCIENCE AND ART 


MOR i o3. 


EXHIBITING THE 


MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS 


IN 


MECHANICS, USEFUL ARTS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, 
ASTRONOMY, GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, MINERALOGY, 
METEOROLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC. 


TOGETHER WITH 


A LIST OF RECENT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS; A CLASSIFIED LIST OF 
PATENTS ; OBITUARIES OF EMINENT SCIENTIFIC MEN; NOTES ON 
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE DURING THE YEAR 18357, ETC. 


EDITED BY 


DAVID A. WELLS, A. M. 


BOS TOM: 
GO Ul DAN i. FN GO: any 


SS WA SH EN GLE ON “Si DRE ET. 
NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 
CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD. 
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 


1859. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
GOULD AND LINCOENR;, 
In the Clerk’s Ofice of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


ELECTROTYPED BY 
WwW. F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS. 
PRINTED BY 
GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, BOSTON. 


ae 


————— 


NOTES: BY THE EDITOR 


ON THE 


PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FOR THE YEAR 1857. 


Tue Eleventh Meeting of the American Association for the Promo- 
tion of Science was held at Montreal, commencing August 12th. The 
president elect, Professor J. W. Bailey, having died during the year, 
the vice president, Professor Caswell, of Brown University, was the 
acting President. The number of members in attendance was as large 
as at any previous meeting. Mr. Ramsay was received as delegate 
from the Geological Society of London, and Mr. B. Seeman, from the 
Linnean Society of London. 

The whole number of Papers presented was 109; 40 in the section 
of Physics and Meteorology; 45 in Geology and Natural History ; and 
24 in Ethnology, Chemistry, Statistics, ete. 

A biographical memoir of Mr. William C. Redfield, the first presi- 
dent of the Association, was read by Professor D. Olmstead, and one 
of Professor Bailey, by Dr. A. A. Gould of Boston. 

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year : — Prof. 
Jeffries Wyman of Cambridge, President; Prof. J. E. Holbrook of 
Charleston, S. C., Vice-President; Prof. Chauvenet, of Annapolis, 
General Secretary ; Dr. A. S. Elwyn, Treasurer. The invitation of 
the Maryland Institute and Historical Society, of that State, to the 
Association to hold its next meeting at Baltimore, was accepted, and 
the last Wednesday of April, 1858, fixed upon as the commencement 
of the session. 

The Association appointed a Committee, consisting of Messrs. James 
Wynne of New York City, E. B. Elliott of Boston, and Franklin Hough 
of Albany, to report a plan for a uniform system of Registration of 
Births, Deaths, and Marriages, applicable to the United States. This 
Committee have, since the adjournment of the Association, issued a 
circular, calling for information and suggestions, in which they say :— 


oe 


AN ee ee 


iv NOTES BY THE EDITOR 
e 

“The necessity for such a measure, to meet the growing demands of 
science in its application to vital statistics, and the facilities which it 
would afford in establishing legal evidence in courts of justice, are of 
too obvious a character to need enforcing by argument. The success 
with which systems of registration have been employed in Europe, 
and the gratifying results that have attended their application in some 
portions of the United States, lead to the hope that the time is not 
distant when we may have throughout the Union a practical and thor- 
ough system, accurate in its details and comparable in its results. ” 

The Twenty-seventh annual meeting of the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, was held at Dublin, Ireland, in August, 
1857, Dr. Lloyd in the chair. The meeting was one of the most suc- 
cessful in the annals of the Association, and many papers of great 
value were presented. 

The meeting for 1858 was appointed to be held in Leeds. Prof. 
Owen, being the President elect. The honor was offered to Dr. 
Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, but he declined it on the ground that 
his state of health would not allow him to undertake any duties beyond 
those of his archiepiscopal office. For 1859 a suggestion in favor of 
Aberdeen was warmly entertained, and it was agreed to invite Prince 
Albert to be the President for that year. 

The following resolutions, affecting the general interests of science, 
were passed at this meeting of the Association : — 

Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to express to the Gov- 
ernment the wish of the British Association that self-recording Ane- 
mometrical Instruments should be established on some of the islands 
of the Atlantic Ocean, in aid of the Meteorological Observations now 
being carried on on ship-board under the direction of the Meteorolog- 
ical department of the Board of Trade. 

That application be made to Government to send a vessel to examine 
and survey the entrance to the Zambesi River in South Africa, and 

to ascend the river as far as may be practicable for navigation. 

' That application be made to Government to send a vessel to the 
vicinity of Mackenzie River, to make a series of magnetic observations 
with special reference to the determination of the laws now known to 
rule the magnetic storms. 

It having been found that the application of science to the improve- 
ment of steam-ships has been impeded by the difficulty of obtaining 
the necessary data from the present registration, — Resolved, that a 
Committee be appointed and authorized to communicate, if necessary, 
with the Board of Trade on the subject. 

The Ray Society held its Fourteenth Annual Meeting during the 
meeting of the British Association at Dublin. Mr. Babington, of 
Cambridge, was in the chair. The Report stated that the members for 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. bi 


1856, had received Prof. Allman’s monograph of the British Fresh- 
water Polyzoa. Great praise was bestowed by the Council on the 
author and artist of this work. This vear the members are to have 
for their subscription a work by Prof. Williamson on the British For- 
aminifera. Prof. Huxley’s work on the Oceanic Hydrozoa is promised 
for 1858-9. 

Among the Geographical Expeditions now, or recently in progress, 
we may mention the following: That of Lieuts. De Crespigny and 
Forbes of the British Navy, in the interior of Borneo; and that of 
Major Burton, (the Pilgrim to Mecca,) and Capt. Speke, in Eastern 
Africa; the latter carry with them a portable iron boat, and hope to 
reach the Lake Neassi. 

The expedition fitted out in England for the purpose of exploring 
both branches of the Niger, by the steam propeller Dayspring, in 
charge of Dr. Baikie, R. N., left the Binue or Kowara river for the 
Niger, on the tenth of July, and has since been heard from in the far 
interior. The expedition is composed of fifty Kroomen, twenty-five 
natives of the countries bordering on the Niger, and fourteen Euro- 
peans, including a naturalist, botanist, and engineers. It is the inten- 
tion to form trading posts on the banks of the river at the most eligible 
situations for the collection of cotton, shea, outter and other productions 
of the interior, provided the climate offers no insuperable obstacles. 

Another expedition is now exploring the Congo river. It is com- 
manded by Ladislaus Magyar, of the Portuguese army, accompanied 
by men of science. His orders are to make a full survey of that 
stream. ; 

A scientific expedition for the exploration of the Colorado river of 
the West, has been recently sent out by the U. 8. Government, under 
the charge of Lieut. Ives, commandant, and Dr. J. 8. Newberry, Geol- 
ogist. 

Sir R. I. Murcheson, in his annual address, for 1856, before the 
Geographical Society, (G. B.) called attention to a region in British 
North America, including at least 112,000 square miles, extending 
from the head waters of the Assiniboine river to the foot of the Rocky 
Mountains, and from the northern branch of the Saskatchewan to the 49th 
parallel of latitude, which has remained almost completely unexplored. 

Since then, an expedition under the auspices of the British Govern- 
ment, commanded by Mr. Palliser and Lieut. Beakston, R. A. has 
been sent out to explore the above mentioned territory. The chief 
objects of the expedition are, First: to survey the water parting be- 
tween the basins of the Missouri and Saskatchewan ; also the course of 
the south branch of Saskatchewan and its tributaries. Secondly : to 
explore the Rocky Mountains, for the purpose of ascertaining the 
mostsoutherly pass across to the Pacific within the British Territory. 

1* 


VI NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


Thirdly: To report on the natural features and general capabilities of 
the country, and to construct a map of the routes. 

At the last dates received, July 1857, the party were en route to the 
Saskatchewan river, previous to wintering at Carlton House Fort. 
The correspondence of Mr. Palliser, communicated to the Geograph- 
ical Society describes the falls of Kakataka, on the White Fish river 
as finer in some respects than those of Niagara, being upwards of 171 
feet in height. The volume of water, however, is much less. 

The London Literary Gazette publishes the following reswme of the 
botanical researches and investigations which have recently been under- 
taken, or are now in progress under the auspices of the Government 
of Great Britain : — 

1. Mr. Milne, Botanist to the Surveying Voyage of Capt. Denham, 
in H.M.S. Herald, is still pursuing his researches in the South Seas, 
and especially among the Fejee Islands. 

2.4Dr. Es Fred: Mueller, the able and indefatigable Geverdunat 
‘ Botanist of Victoria, received the appointment of Botanist to the Over- 
land Expedition in North Australia, under the command of Mr. Greg- 
ory. This arduous journey has been happily accomplished in the 
most satisfactory manner. Dr. Mueller has safely returned with his 
collections, and some account of them will appear in the “ Journal of 
Botany.” His expenses were borne by the Australian government. 

3. Vancouver’s Island and the adjacent coasts of North-West Amer- 
ica. Capt. Richards, R. N., has lately sailed in H.M.S. Plumper, for 
the purpose of surveying these countries, which have attracted no 
small degree of attention since the boundary line between the United 
States territories and the British possessions in North America has 
been so fully discussed, and we believe settled. Although no botanist, 
or express botanical collector, has been attached to the survey, the 
assistant-surgeon, Dr. Campbell, and some of the officers, will exert 
themselves to collect plants; and we know also that a free passage, 
and every assistance and facility for herborizing on shore, will be 
offered to a collector, now expected to be at San Francisco, and who 
has been invited to join the survey. Vancouver's Island, of very 
ereat extent, is said to abound in pines and forest trees. 

4. Mr. Barter, one of the very intelligent gardeners of the Regent’s 
Park Garden, has been appointed by the Admiralty to accompany Dr. 
Baikie, R. N., in his present ascent and survey of the Kwéra and 
Binue (formerly considered the Niger and Ts&dda); and from Dr. 
Baikie’s familiarity with that river there is reason to expect that great 
opportunities will present themselves for increasing our knowledge of 
this part of tropical Africa, which has been the grave of so many of 
our scientific explorers. 

5. The present of a beautiful steam-yacht, lately sent by the British 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. VII 


Government to the Emperor of Japan, it was thought by the Admiralty 
might be a means of affording facilities for a boeinist to penetrate into 
that little-known country, and they generously offered a passage to a 
botanical collector, should the Royal Gardens deem it expedient to 
send one. Mr. Charles Wilford, of the Botanical Gardens at Kew 
was therefore appointed, and has entered upon the duties of his office. 
Mr. W., when his time for remaining in Japan shall have expired, will 
be attached to H.M.S. Acteon, for the survey of the coasts of Northern 
China, and especially Eastern Tartary (or Mantchouria), a terra incog- 
nita we believe to the European botanist, and likely to yield a very 
rich harvest. 

6. The sixth and last botanical mission we have to notice, is that 
which is exploring the south-western territories of the British posses- 
sions in North America. The expedition is accompanied by a scien- 
tific staff, and the object is to make researches in the little known 
parts of British North America, especially among the Rocky Mountains 
and towards the United States boundary line, in about latitude 48°. 

Much of this country is only known to the Canadian voyageurs and 
Indian hunters; but by far the most interesting region will be a new 
route across the Rocky Mountains, between the United States boundary 
and the present only practicable route of the voyageurs, in about 55° 
N. lat. Here the country will be wholly new, and it is hoped the 
expedition will receive instructions to prosecute their researches as far 
as the West coast at the Gulf of Georgia, or Straits of De Fuca of 
the Pacific Ocean. 

During the past year a new expedition, fitted out by lady Franklin, 
and under the charge of an experienced Arctic voyageur, Capt. M’- 
Clintock, has sailed in search of the lost navigators. 

‘ A glance at any recent map of the Arctic regions shows that nearly 
the whole area east and west of the outlet of the Fish River has been 
swept by Government searching expeditions. Apart, then, from the 
fact that Esquimaux reports point to a very limited locality where the 
great Arctic mystery lies concealed, we are warranted in hoping that 
a search within an area embracing not more than 370 miles of coast, 
may be rewarded by the discovery of the Erebus and Terror. Capt. 
M’Clintock proposes to make his way down Prince Regent’s Inlet, and 
thence through Bellot’s Strait to the field of search; or, should the ice 
permit, to proceed direct to it by going down Peel Sound, which he 
has good reasons for believing to be a strait. If prevented by the ice 
from passing through Bellot’s Strait, or gomg down Peel Sound, he 
will abandon the idea of taking his ship through these channels, and, 
leaving her in safety in Prince Regent’s Inlet, will proceed to search 
for the Erebus and Terror, by sledging parties. Capt. M’Clintock’s 
primary object will, of course, be the rescue of a single survivor of the 


Vill NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


Franklin Expedition, if one should exist, as recent reports brought 
home by whaling captains would tend to show may possibly be the case. 
Secondly, the discovery and restoration of any documents or relics ap- 
pertaining to the lost Expedition; and, thirdly, the verification of the 
course taken by the Franklin Expedition, and confirmation of the re- 
port brought home by Dr. Rae, to the effect that in the early spring 
of 1850, a party from the Erebus and Terror landed a boat on King 
William Land,—a fact which in itself establishes the priority of the 
discovery of a North-West Passage by Sir John Franklin. The lo- 
cality to be searched is in the immediate vicinity of the North Magnetic 
Pole, one of the most interesting spots on the face of our globe, which, 
however, it will be remembered, is not stationary. With the view of 
taking advantage of the opportunities thus presented for magnetical 
investigations, the Council of the Royal Society voted a sum of money 
for the purchase of magnetical and meteorological instruments; and a 
committee, consisting of distinguished physicists, have supplied Capt. 
M’Clintock with desiderata in magnetism and meteorology, while Sir 
W. Hooker and Dr. Hooker have furnished instructions respecting bo- 
tanical collections, and supplied Ward’s cases for the growth of escu- 
lent vegetables. 

The following is a summary statement of the recent geographical 
surveys planned or executed under the authority of the Russian Gov- 
ernment during the last few years :— 

The most important has been the exploration of the Amour River. 
This vast river, which flows through Chinese Tartary, has not hitherto 
been surveyed, and is very loosely located on even the best maps. It 
rises in the mountains of Siberia, east of Lake Baikal, and flows east- 
wardly through the immense district of Mantchouria into the Sea of 
Ochotsk, in fifty-three degrees north latitude. Its length is 2,200 miles, 
being about as large as the Mississippi. An exploration and scientific 
survey has been made of Lake Baikal, the largest body of fresh water 
on the Asiatic continent. It is situated in Southern Siberia, between 
. latitude fifty-one degrees and fifty-six degrees north, and between lon- 
gitude 103 degrees and 109 degrees east. It is about 370 miles in 
length, forty-five miles average width, about 900 miles circuit — some- 
what larger than Lake Erie. Its depth is very remarkable, as it is 
surrounded by high mountains. The River Angoria, its outlet, joins 
the Yenisei River, and flows north until it reaches the Arctic Ocean, 
making, in its total length, another of the great rivers of the world — 
some 2,600 miles. ‘Through its channel an immense volume of water 
is emptied into the Bay of Yenisei, and thence into the Sea of Kara, 
in north latitude seventy-three degrees, east longitude eighty-five de- 
grees, being six degrees thirty minutes within the Arctie circle. Ovw- 
ing to its Arctic outlet it is rendered impracticable commercially, al- 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. Ix 


though it 1s the largest river flowing into the Arctic seas from either 
continent. A survey of the valley of the Maniteh and of the fishe- 
ries of the Caspian Sea has been made by M. Baer. The river Man- 
iteh is 315 miles in length, empties itself into the Don, and so finds its 
way to the Sea of Azov. 

A geosraphical and scientific survey of ihe southern portion of 
Eastern Siberia is now under way, under the supervision of M. Ous- 
oliseff. Geographical detail in relation to this region has hitherto been 
little more than a blank. 

During the past year intelligence has been received of the murder 
of Dr. Vogel, the successor of Dr. Barth, in his explorations in Cen- 
tral Africa. The most authentic accounts relative to his fate, have 
been obtained through the English Consul at Khartoum, Upper Nubia, 
from an envoy of the King of Darfur to the Pacha of Egypt. Accord- 
ing to his statement, Dr. Vogel (Abdul Wahed) “ had departed from 
Bornu for Berghami, where he was well received, and after having vis- 
ited all localities as he wished, he proceeded to Madagu, and from 
thence passed to Borgu, that is to say, Waday, where he met the Viz- 
ier of the Prince of Waday, named Simalek, who treated him well. 
He afterwards entered the interior of that province to the capital city, 
called Wara, where the Prince Seiaraf, so called Sultan of Waday, who 
is now paralytic, resides ; but in the neighborhood of Wara there is a sa- 
cred mountain, the ascent of which is prohibited to all persons. Abdul 
Wahed (Dr. Vogel), whether informed of this or not, ascended this sa- 
cred mountain, and when the prince learned it he ordered him to be 
put to death, and so it was.” 

The recent progress of Astronomical Science is thus sketched by 
Dr. Lloyd, the last President of the British Association, in his inaugural 
address.— The career of planetary discovery, which began in the first 
years of the present century, and was resumed in 1845, has since con- 
tinued with unabated ardor; and since 1846 not a single year has 
passed without some one or more additions to the number of the plan< 
etoids. ‘The known number of these bodies is now fifty. Their total 
mass, however, is very small. The diameter of the largest is less than 
forty miles, while that of the smallest (Atlanta) is little more than four. 

These discoveries have been facilitated by star-maps and star-cata- 
logues, the formation of which they have, on the other hand, stimu- 
lated. Two very extensive works of this kind are now in progress — 
The Star-Catalogue, of M. Chacornac, made at the observatory of 
Marseilles, in course of publication by the French Government; and 
that of Mr. Cooper, made at his observatory at Markree, in Ireland, 
which is now being published by the Royal Society. It is a remarka- 
ble result of the latter labor, that no fewer than seventy-seven stars, 
previously catalogued, are now missing. This, no doubt, is to be as- 


x NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


cribed in part to the errors of former observations; but it seems rea- 
sonable to suppose that, to some extent at least, it is the result of 
changes actually in progress in the Sidereal System. ‘The sudden ap- 
pearance of a new fixed star in the heavens, its subsequent change of 
lustre, and its final disappearance, are phenomena which have at all 
times attracted the attention of astronomers. About twenty such have 
been observed.- Arago has given the history of the most remarkable, 
and discussed the various hypotheses which have been offered for their 
explanation. Of these, the most plausible is that which attributes the 
phenomenon to unequal brightness of the faces of the star which are 
presented successively to the earth by the star’s rotation round its axis. 
On this hypothesis the appearance should be periodic. M. Goldschmidt 
has recently given support to this explanation, by rendering it proba- 
ble that the new star of 1609 is the same whose appearance was re- 
corded in the years 393, 798, and 1203. Its period in such case is 
4053 years. 

The greater part of the celestial phenomena are comprised in the 
movements of the heavenly bodies and the configuration depending on 
them; and they are for the most part reducible to the same law of 
gravity which governs the planetary motions. But there are appear- 
ances which indicate the operation of other forces, and which, there- 
fore, demand the attention of the physicist — although, from their na- 
ture, they must probably long remain subjects of speculation. Of these, 
the spiriform nebule, discovered by Lord Rosse, indicate changes in 
the more distant regions of the universe, to which there is nothing en- 
tirely analogous in our own system. These appearances are accounted 
for, by an able anonymous writer, by the action of gravitating forces 
combined with the efiects of a resisting medium —the resistance being 
supposed to bear a sensible proportion to the gravitating action. The 
constitution of the central body of our own system presents a nearer 
and more interesting subject of speculation. ‘Towards the close of the 
last century many hypotheses were advanced regarding the nature and 
constitution of the sun, all of which agreed in considering it to be an 
opaque body, surrounded at some distance by aluminous envelop. But 
the only certain fact which has been added to science in this de- 
partment is the proof given by Arago that the light of the sun ema- 
nated (not from an incandescent solid, but) from a gaseous atmosphere, 
the light of mcandescent solid bodies being polarized by refraction, 
while the light of the sun, and that emitted by gaseous bodies, is wn- 
polarized. According to the observations of Schwabe, which have 
been continued without intermission for more than thirty years, the 
magnitude of the solar surface obscured by spots increases and de- 
creases periodically, the length of the period being eleven years and 
forty days. ‘This remarkable fact, and the relation which it appears to 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XI 


bear to certain phenomena of terrestrial magnetism, have attracted 
fresh interest to the study of the solar surface; and upon the suggestion 
of Sir John Herschel, a photoheliographic apparatus has lately been es- 
tablished at Kew, for the purpose of depicting the actual macular state 
-of the sun’s surface from time to time. It is well known that Sir Wil- 
liam Herschel accounted for the solar spots by currents of an elastic 
fluid ascending from the body of the sun, and penetrating the exte- 
rior luminous envelop. A somewhat different speculation of the same 
kind has been recently advanced by Mosotti, who has endeavored to 
connect the Phenomena of the solar spots with those of the red protub- 
erances which appear to issue from the body of the sun in a total eclipse, 
and which so much interested astronomers in the remarkable eclipse 
of 1842. Next to the sun, our own satellite has always claimed the 
attention of astronomers, while the comparative smallness of its dis- 
tance inspired the hope that some knowledge of its physical structure 
could be attained with the large instrumental means now available. 
Accordingly, at the Meeting of the Association in 1852, it was pro- 
posed that the Earl of Rosse, Dr. Robinson, and Prof. Phillips be re- 
quested to draw up a Report on the physical character of the moon’s 
surface, as compared with that of the earth. That the attention of 
these eminent observers has been directed to the subject, may be in- 
ferred from the communication lately made by Prof. Phillips to the 
Royal Society on the mountain Cassendi, and the surrounding region. 
But I am not aware that the subject is yet ripe fora Report. I need 
not remind you that the moon possesses neither sea nor atmosphere of 
appreciable extent. Still, as a negative, in such case, is relative only 
to the capabilities of the instruments employed, the search for the in- 
dications of a lunar atmosphere has been renewed with fresh augmen- 
tation of telescopic power. Of such indications, the most delicate, 
perhaps, are those afforded by the occultation of a planet by the moon. 
The occultation of Jupiter, which took place on the 2d of January, 
1857, was observed with this reference, and is said to have exhibited 
no hesitation, or change of form or brightness, such as would be pro- 
duced by“the refraction or absorption of an atmosphere. As respects 
the sea, the mode of examination long since suggested by Sir David 
Brewster is probably the most effective. If water existed on the 
moon’s surface, the sun’s light reflected from it should be completely 
polarized at a certain elongation of the moon from the sun. No traces 
of such light have been observed; but I am not aware that the obser- 
vations have been repeated recently with any of the larger telescopes. 
It is now well understood that the path of astronomical discovery is 
obstructed much more by the earth’s atmosphere than by the limita- 
tion of telescopic powers. Impressed with this conviction, the Asso- 
ciation has, for some time past, urged upon Her Majesty’s Government 


XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


the scientific importance of establishing a large reflector at some ele- 
vated station in the Southern Hemisphere. In the mean time, and to 
gain (as it were,) a sample of the results which might be expected from 
a more systematic search, Prof. Piazzi Smyth undertook, last summer, 
the task of transporting a large collection of instruments to a high point 
on the Peak of Teneriffe. His stations were two in number, at the 
altitudes above the sea of 8,840 and 10,700 feet respectively ; and the 
astronomical advantages gained may be inferred from the fact, that 
the heat radiated from the moon, which has been so often sought for 
in vain in a lower region, was distinctly perceptible, even at the lower 
of the two stations. 

The theory and observations of the Rev. Mr. Jones, U. S. N., re- 
specting the zodiacal light, have been published in full during the past 
year, in one of the volumes of the report of the U. S. Japan Expedi- 
tion, and additional confirmatory observations made in 1857 in Quito, 
S. A., by Mr. Jones were also presented to the American Association. 
The views of Mr. Jones, while they have received the sanction of 
many astronomers and physicists, are strongly opposed by others, and 
some very cogent statements in opposition, founded on long continued 
observations, have been brought forward by Capt. Wilkes, U. S. N. 
They do not, moreover, seem to find favor with European astrono- 
mers, and Prof. Piazzi Smyth, in a recent paper before the Royal 
Society, after opposing the theory, as published in his Japan Expe- 
dition Report, closes by saying, that he does not think Mr. Jones ever 
saw the zodiacal light at all. 

Father Secchi, the well-known astronomer of Rome, is continuing his 
researches to determine the rotation of the third satellite of Jupiter; the 
spots upon it are very visible, but it is not easy to get two observations 
by which to ascertain the rate of motion in any one evening. He re- 
ports a difference in the features of Jupiter from last year. The lowest 
apparent inferior belt “is a perfect assemblage of clouds, and below 
this is a very fine line of a yellow color, which appears like a micro- 
scopic thread stretched across the planet.” 

As regards the surface of the moon, on which he has, of late, bestowed 
much attention, he thinks he may pronounce the nature of such lunar 
regions as he has explored (at a distance), to be similar to that of 
volcanic regions on the earth. 

A reward of $500, having been offered during the past year, through 
one of the public newspapers of Boston to any one who could exhibit 
in the presence and to the satisfaction of certain Professors of the 
Natural Sciences in Harvard University, any such marvellous phenom- 
ena as were commonly reported by Spiritualists as having transpired 
in the presence, or through the agency of certain persons designated as 
‘“‘mediums,”—and the offer having been accepted by the defenders 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. xIIE 


of the reality of the so-called spiritual manifestations, a somewhat 
lenethy investigation was entered into. The parties in question em- 
braced four scientific gentlemen from Cambridge, a number of the 
most celebrated mediums from different sections of the country, and a 
few observers, friends of both parties. The published award of the 
Committee was as follows: —‘‘ The Committee decide that the party 
accepting the challenge having failed to produce before them an agent 
or medium who “communicated a word imparted to the spirits in an 
adjoining room,” “ who read a word in English written inside a book 
or folded sheet of paper,” who answered any question “ which the 
superior intelligences must be able to answer,” “ who tilted a piano 
without touching it, or caused a chair to move a foot;” and having 
failed to exhibit to the Committee any phenomenon which, under the 
widest latitude of interpretation, could be regarded as equivalent to 
either of these proposed tests, or any phenomenon which required for 
its production, or in any manner indicated a force which could tech- 
nically be denominated Spiritual, or which was hitherto unknown to 
science, or a phenomenon of which the cause was not palpable to the 
Committee, is, therefore, not entitled to claim the proposed premium 
of $500. 

“Tt is the opinion of the Committee, derived from observation, that 
any connection with spiritualistic circles, so called, corrupts the morals 
and degrades the intellect. They therefore deem it their solemn duty 
to warn the community against this contaminating influence, which 
surely tends to lessen the truth of man and the purity of woman.” 

The defenders of the reality and truth of the “ Spiritual phenom- 
ena” on the other hand assert that the investigation was conducted 
unfairly, and in such a way as to prevent any successful issue on their 
part.” As regards the two conclusions, the least that can be said is, 
that the public is about evenly divided in their judgments. It is much 
to be regretted that the investigation should have thus resulted, and 
that the Committee, while charging imposture and delusion should fail 
to prove it beyond a doubt, or possibility of error. 

The Annual Prizes awarded by the French Academy for the past 
year, were principally as follows : * — 

The great prize for mathematical science was given to a German, 
M. Kummer, for his Researches on complex numbers consisting of 
roots of unity and of whole numbers. One of the grand prizes in 
physical science was given to Professor Bronn at Heidelberg, for an 
extensive work made in reply to the following questions: —1. What 
are the laws of distribution of fossil organized bodies in the different 
sedimentary strata as regards their order of superposition. 2. What as 


* Derived from the foreign correspondence of Silliman’s Journal, 


XIV NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


to their successive or simultaneous appearance or disappearance. 3 
What the relations which exist between the present condition of the 
organic kingdoms and that of earlier time. 

Another prize, which had been held out ever since 1847, was given 
to Lereboullet, Professor of Zoology at Strasbourg. The subject was 
the following: To establish, by studying the development of the embryo 
in two species, taken one from among the Vertebrata, and the other, either 
from the Mollusca or Articulata, the basis for comparative embryology. 
The subject was one requiring long investigation, and the Academy 
awarded a medal of gold, valued at 3000 franes. 

The prize in Experimental Physiology was divided between Messrs. 
Waller, Davaine and Fabre; the first, for his experiments on the 
ganglions of the rachidian nerves ; the second, for his experiments on 
the Anguillula Tritici; the third, for researches on the action of the 
poison of the Cerceris (Hymenopterous insects) on the nervous ganglion- 
ary system of insects. This is not the place to analyze the interesting 
researches of these physiologists. But we may say however that M. 
Fabre brought out the fact that the larves, with which the insects of 
the Cerceris family provision their nests for the nourishment of their 
own young, are struck with a kind of paralysis, which permits of their 
living for a long time while depriving them of the faculty of feeling 
or moving. This species of anesthetic condition is produced by the 
puncture of one of the thoracic ganglions by the sting of the Cerceris; 
and M. Fabre has succeeded in producing this condition at will by 
introducing a little ammonia into the nervous ganglionary system, an 
effect which he has repeated in other insects. 

As usual, the Academy found nothing to compensate or encourage 
in physics, chemistry, or in mineralogy, if we except a prize of 2500 
francs given to M. Schroetter for the discovery of the isomeric state 
of red phosphorus. 

The commission on prizes in medicine distributed upwards of 
50,000 francs. The principal recipients were : — 

Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh, who, as stated by Mr. Flourens, first 
introduced chloroform into anesthesis for surgical operations. 

Dr. Middledorp of Vienna (Austria) for the application of the 
galvano-caustic in certain surgical operations. 

M. Brown-Sequard, for having shown that various lesions of the 
spinal marrow in the Mammalia, may be followed after some weeks by 
a convulsive epileptiform affection, produced either spontaneously or 
by excitation of the ramifications of the fifth pair of nerves on the side 
corresponding to that of the lesion. 

Mr. Delpeach, for making known the accidents occuring among 
workmen in the India-rubber business from the inhalation of sulphuret 
of carbon. 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. xv 


The Cuvierian prize, which is assigned every three years to the 
author of works in Natural History, was given to Prof. Richard Owen, 
who for more than twenty years, through works of great number and 
elevated character, has contributed largely to comparative anatomy 
and paleontology. This prize was first given to Prof. Agassiz for his 
work on fossil fishes, and the second time to Prof. Miller of Berlin, 
for his researches on the structure and development of Echinoderms. 

It is thus seen that in this year, as in others preceding, foreign men 
of science have taken a large part of the prizes, a fact highly honor- 
able to the Academy of Sciences, showing that a right to its munificence 
does not rest in being a Frenchman, but in being worthy of it through 
actual labors. 

The number of well-endowed Meteorological Observatories is grad- 
ually increasing. ‘The Pope has recently authorized the formation of 
one at Rome, and has contributed liberally towards the expense of 
constructing it and of providing it with the necessary instruments. 
The Captain General of Cuba, has also decreed that one shall be 
established on that island, under the direction of Mr. Poey, the well- 
known meteorologist. 

The Paris Observatory now receives meteorological observations 
every day from fourteen stations in France and seven in foreign coun- 
tries. The foreign stations are Madrid, Rome, Turin, Geneva, Brus- 
sels, Vienna, and Lisbon. Now that telegraphic communication has 
been established between France and Algeria, meteorological observa- 
tions from districts of Northern Africa will also be included. 

The sum of $15,000 has been donated to Iowa College by Mr. Chas. 
Hendrie, for the ultimate purpose of establishing and endowing a 
school in that institute, similar to the “ Lawrence Scientific School in 
Harvard University.” 

The French Government has recently created a new chair in the 
Museum of Natural History, at Paris, under the name of “ Vegetable 
Physics,” and has appointed to it M. G. Ville, who has distinguished 
himself by his researches on the absorption of nitrogen by plants. 

The new professor will have, it appears, specially to occupy himself 
with such matters relative to vegetable production as do not fall strictly 
within the domain of botany, the cultivation of the soil, and agricul- 
‘tural chemistry. 

In an election for a vacant Professorship of the Natural Sciences in 
the University of Glasgow, Scotland, during the past year, Prof. Henry 
D. Rogers, Geologist to the State of Pennsylvania, was unanimously 
chosen. Prof. R. is now engaged in the supervision of the publication 
of the Report of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, which consti- 
tutes one of the most important and elegant contributions ever made 
to natural science. 


wavr NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


The sum of two thousand five hundred dollars was appropriated at 
the last session of Congress “to enable the Secretary of the Treasury 
to cause such experiments and analyses of different beds of ore as to 
test whether any such ores, in their native state, possess alloys that will 
resist the tendency to oxydize to a greater extent than others, and to 
ascertain under what circumstances they are found, and where, in or- 
der to facilitate the proper selections of iron for public works.” To 
carry out the object in view, the Secretary states in his recent Report 
‘that he has caused circulars to be sent to all iron-masters whose 
names could be ascertained, soliciting specimens of ore and iron, and 
calling for information pertinent to the subject, and that in compliance 
with the request, a large number of specimens have been received. 

“So soon as the specimens are all received and arranged, and the 
information which accompanies them has been abstracted and collated, 
a competent chemist or metallurgist will be employed to make the ex- 
periments and analysis. Conclusive evidence has already been re- 
ceived that a decided difference in the susceptibility of different irons 
to oxydize does exist, and it is hoped that the proposed analysis will 
discover the cause. However, should the experiments fail in this re- 
spect, they will at least show the localities from which the least oxydiz- 
able iron can be procured.” 

The late M. Michaux, the distinguished botanist, author of the Sylva 
Americana, bequeathed by will, to the Massachusetts Agricultural So- 
ciety, $8,000, for the purpose of promoting Sylvaculture and Horticul- 
ture, and of making experiments in the growth of trees in “sandy 
rocks and bog soils. The principal portion of the bequest is to be in- 
vested for increase in good farm land; cheap and productive land is 
to be purchased with another portion, and the remainder to be appro- 
priated to seeding and planting the experimental plantations. 

A larger sum than the above was also bequeathed the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Science, for similar purposes. 

In accordance with a joint resolution of Congress passed in 1857, to 
provide for ascertaining the relative value of the coinage of the United 
States and Great Britain, and fixing the relative value of the coins of 
the two countries, Prof. Alexander, of Baltimore, has been appointed 
Commissioner to confer with the proper functionaries in Great Britain 
in relation to some plan or plans of so mutually arranging, on the dec- 
imal basis, the coinage of the two countries, as that the respective 
units shall hereafter be easily and exactly commensurable. 

The researches of M. Ville, of France, on the absorption of the ni- 
trogen of the atmosphere by plants during vegetation still continue. 
The importance of these researches may be best understood by the 
fact that the French Academy has voted a snm of 4000 francs, the 
half as an indemnification for the expense of his past experiments, and 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XVII 


the other 2000 francs for continuing his labors. The subject is still 
in much obscurity, and the issue of further experiments must be 
awaited. M. Liebig holds that the azote of plants is entirely derived 
from ammonia, and that there is no direct absorption of the azote of 
the atmosphere, against which opinion some of M. Ville’s researches 
seem to militate. 

The Institute of British Architects annoynce, as subjects for future 
prizes; “ The Application of Wrought Iron to Structural Purposes ;” 
“The Influence of Local Materials on English Architecture ;” and they 
promise a tangible honor “ for the best design in not less than five 
drawings, for a marine sanitarium, or building for the temporary resi- 
dence of a limited number of convalescents belonging to the middle 
and upper classes of society.” 

M. Milne Edwards, of Paris, has completed the first volume of his 
great work, “‘ Lecons sur la Physiologie et |’ Anatomie Caparée de 
Homme et des Animaux.” It is a full exposition of the state of these 
sciences at the present time, and of the progress they have made since 
Cuvier wrote on them. 

Prof. Harvey, the English Algologist, has now in press, as the result 
of his Australian expedition, an illustrated marine botany of Austra- 
lia. The work will contain colored illustrations, and descriptions of 
three hundred of the more characteristic and remarkable species. 
This number will allow for the full illustration of all the Genera, and 
of the principal sub-types composed within each Genus. 

The first part of the second volume of the Annals of the Observa- 
tory of Harvard College published during the past year, relates wholly 
to Saturn, and contains the observations made at the observatory by 
Wm. C. Bond, Director of the Observatory. The general results 
have been before the public for some time, and their high merit is well 
known. The observations are brought down to May of the present year. 
The series of plates contain 120 figures representing the appearances 
of Saturn and the ring at as many different times of observation. 

The celebrated Mezzofanti library has been purchased by the Pope, 
principally out of his own privy purse, and munificently presented to 
the Bologna public library. The collection consists of several thou- 
sand volumes, principally classical and oriental works, and contains 
grammars, dictionaries, and educational books alone, in eighty differ- 
ent languages and dialects. The Bologna library, which has had the 
good fortune to acquire this treasure, possesses already about one hun- 
dred and forty thousand volumes, many of which are very rare. 

A continuation of Ehrenberg’s great work has been recently issued, 
consisting of eighty-eight pages large folio: and it relates exclusively 
to North America. It consists of descriptions of earths and river sed- 
iments, from different sections of the country, as regards their infu- 


O* 


XVIII NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


sorial contents, and tables of the results for each. The parcels ex- 
amined and here described amount to two hundred and forty-seven, 
eighty-five of which are from Texas, four from Arkansas, thirty-six 
from the Washita and Neosho, etc. The number of microscopic spe- 
cies observed by Ehrenberg and Bailey in the Southern United States 
is eight hundred and fifty-five; of these one hundred and forty-eight 
are brackish water and marine species, about half of them being fossil 
and half living. 

An interesting contribution to our knowledge of Organic Morpholo- 
gy has been made during the past year by Mr. John Warner, of Potts- 
ville, Pa. This name is used to designate that branch of science which 
seeks to explain organic forms upon mathematical or mechanical 
principles. The subject has attracted much attention in Europe, but 
has received but little notice in this country. Mr. Warner’s contribu- 
tion consists of a pamphlet, illustrated by nearly two hundred engray- 
ings, containing an account of the labors of foreign Physicists in this 
field, besides some original formule for the construction of curved lines, 
accompanied with the ficures of the curves themselves, and of jae or- 
ganic forms which they resemble. 

It is worthy of notice that the author has succeeded in bringing the 
curves representing, at least approximately, the types of first, the ege, 
and then of several organic forms, under one general equation, the re- 
lation of which to the revolving orbit of Newton, and to the curves of 
Grandus, is also shown. This, we believe, is a new result. The 
Curves of Grandus had long been forgotten or neglected; Mr. War- 
ner is, we believe, the first to notice them in connection with Morpho- 
logical history, as also to introduce some other historical matter gleaned 
in the field of Mathematics. As the author declines to speculate on 
the manner in which the vital forces may cause matter to assume the 
forms represented by his curves, we shall not undertake to supply what 
may be needed in this respect. We would say, however, that the sub- 
ject promises to continue to engage the attention of Physicists, and 
we incline to the belief, which the author appears to entertain, that 
Organic Morphology will one day become a strict science. 

The third volume of Observations made at the Magnetical and Me- 
teorological Observatory at Toronto, Canada, under the general su- 
perintendence of Gen. Sabine, R. A., has been published during the 
past year by the British Government. 

The main body of the work is occupied by a record of the obser- 
vations; but Gen. Sabine has appended to the apparently dry figures 
a chapter entitled Comments and Conclusions, which contains many 
interesting remarks and curious deductions. It has been found that in 
the north-solstitial months, easterly disturbances preponderate, and in 
the south-solstitial months westerly predominate. The equinoctial 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XIX 


months are the epochs of maximum disturbance, and the solstitial 
months epochs of minimum disturbance. It has also been discovered 
that the occurrence of the larger disturbances of the vertical force at 
Toronto is governed by periodical laws depending on the hours of so- 
lar time. The aggregate value of the disturbances in the five years 
is a maximum at 3 Pp. M. and a minimum at 11 A.M. There is alsoa 
secondary maximum at 5 p. M. and a secondary minimum at 9 P. M. 

The three magnetic elements concur in showing that the moon exer- 
cises a sensible magnetic influence at the surface of the earth, produc- 
ing in every lunar day a variation in each of the three elements; but 
by far the most interesting discovery connected with terrestrial mag- 
netism is the curious accordance between intense magnetic disturbance 
and spots on the sun. These spots have been observed to increase 
and decrease in number and intensity decennially, and it appears that 
the periodical magnetical inequality has its opposite phases of maxi- 
mum and minimum separated by an interval of five years, of which 
the cycle might therefore be conceived to include about ten of our so- 
lar years. Respecting this remarkable circumstance, General Sabine 
observes : 

“ Had no other circumstance presented itself to give additional in- 
terest to an investigation which held out at least a fair promise of 
making known laws of definite order and sequence in phenomena 
which have excited so much attention of late years, but of which so 
little has hitherto been ascertained,— had, for example, the decennial 
period which appeared to prevail with precisely corresponding feat- 
ures in two distinct classes of the magnetic variations, connected itself 
with no other periodical variation either of a terrestrial or cosmical 
nature with which we are acquainted,— there might have been, indeed, 
little reason to apprehend, in these days of physical curiosity and in- 
ductive application, that the investigation would have been suffered to 
drop; but the interest has doubtless been greatly enhanced by the re- 
markable coincidence, between the above-described periodical inequal- 
ity by which the magnetic variations referable to solar influence are 
affected, and the periodical inequality which has been discovered by 
M. Schwabe to exist in the frequency and magnitude of the solar spots. 
The coincidence as far as we are yet able to discover, is absolute; the 
duration of the period is the same, and the epochs of maximum and 
minimum fall in both cases on the same years. The regularity with 
which the alternations of increase and decrease have been traced by 
M. Schwabe in his observations of the solar spots (which have been 
now continued for about thirty years), must be regarded as conferring 
a very high degree of probability on the systematic character of causes 
which as yet are known to us only by the visible appearances which 
they produce on the sun’s disk, and by the disturbances which they oc- 


xX NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


casion in the magnetic direction and force at the surface of our globe. 
As a discovery which promises to raise terrestrial magnetism to the dig- 
nity of a cosmical science, we may feel confident that, although the co- 
lonial observatories have been brought to a close, the investigations, 
which they have thus successfully commenced, will be pursued to their 
proper accomplishment in those national establishments which have a 
permanency suitable for such undertakings.” 

It is evident that the former supposed analogy between magnetical 
and atmospherical disturbance must now be abandoned, and that we 
must seek in more distant sources than those of meteorological phe- 
nomena for the causes of magnetical disturbances. It can only be, 
however, by the aid of long-continued and patient observations that 
the philosopher will be enabled to deduce magnetical laws which it is 
not too much to assert will be found among the most interesting in the 
whole range of physical science. For, as Bacon remarks, “ Physical 
knowledge daily grows up and new actions of nature are disclosed,” 
—and it is quite certain that it is the duty of all civilized nations to 
take an active part in extending physical science, which enters largely 
into a country’s glory and prosperity. 


We present to our readers for the present year, the portrait of 
Prof. Henry D. Rogers, LL. D., Professor of Natural Sciences 
in the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and Geologist to the 
State of Pennsylvania. 


a? 


‘> 
— 


THE 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 


THE UNION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND COMMERCE. 


- Tr is one of the characteristics of the present age that commercial associa- 
tions of private persons, receiving from the State no assistance except a 
sanction of their union, and employing their funds only in the ordinary 
modes of commerce, have been able to execute works which scarcely any 
power of the State could attempt, and incidentally to give to objects not con- 
templated in their original enterprise, an amount of assistance which no 
direct action of the State could give. The latter advantage has been ex- 
perienced in numerous instances, affecting our social comforts and our con- 
structive arts: it is now felt with equal force in our more abstract science. 
The history of a late astronomical investigation will illustrate this remark. 

The celebrity of the observations of Greenwich and Paris, and the close 
connection between the subjects of their observations, made it desirable long 
since, to determine their difference of longitude. About the year 1787 the 
matter was on both sides taken up by the national authorities, and an expen- 
sive and accurate survey was undertaken, — the English part at the expense 
of the British Government, and the French part at that of the French Gov- 
ernment — for connecting the two observatories. This geodetic connection 
of observatories was the first and ostensible object of the survey, though it 
led, ultimately, in England, to the construction of ordnance maps. The 
difference of longitude ascertained by this expensive process was, no doubt, 
free from any large error; yet men of science were so little satisfied with it 
that it was thought desirable to take the earliest opportunity of verifying the 
result by an operation of a different kind. 

In the year 1825 another attempt was made also at the expense of the 
State. On the English side it was managed principally by Mr., now Sir 


22 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


John Herschel, and Captain, now General Sabine; on the French side, by 
Colonel Bonne, and some of the most distinguished French engineer officers. 
The plan adopted on this occasion, was to make simultaneous observations 
on rocket-signals at a chain of stations extending from Greenwich to Paris. 
In spite of all the care which had been taken in preparatory arrangements, 
this enterprise, in a great measure, failed. On the English side, almost 
every part was successful; but, on the French side, nearly the whole labor 
was lost, and the final result for difference of longitude depended only on the 
observation of ten rocket-signals. 

Passing over the attempts made to verify the ancient survey, as well as 
those made by private persons, to determine the difference of longitude by 
the transmission of a few chronometers, we now come to the more fortunate 
enterprise which has suggested the preceding-remarks. 

No sooner did there appear to be a reasonable prospect of success for the 
submarine telegraph, than the astronomical authorities (the Astronomer 
Royal, on the British side, and the Bureau des Longitudes, on the French 
side) addressed themselves to the Submarine Telegraph Company, with a 
view of establishing a connection by galvanic telegraph between the two ob- 
servatories. By that company their applications were received in the most 
liberal manner. The company’s wires were placed at the service of the ob- 
servatories at the hours most convenient for them; the connections — when 
necessary — were made by the company’s officers, and no remuneration of 
any kind was expected. 

It is not necessary here to go into details upon the method employed, 
or the extent to which it was carried. It will suffice to say that several 
thousand signals were interchanged ; so many, in fact, as to permit of the 
rejection of the larger portion, retaining only those —to the number of 
nearly two thousand — which were considered to be made under unexcep- 
tionable circumstances. The contrast of this number with that of the signals 
on which the determination of 1835 depended, is striking. But the difference 
in the quality of the individual signals is not less striking. The result of a 
single signal, given by the galvanic telegraph, is perhaps as accurate as the 
mean of all the results of the former operation. Itis unnecessary, therefore, to 
say that no comparison can be made between the difference of longitude con- 
cluded from the former observations, and that found from the mass of the 
late signals. The former determination is now shown to be erroneous by 
almost a second of time—a large quantity in astronomy — and this cor- 
rection is nearly certain to its hundredth part. For this gain of accuracy, 
this veritable advance of science, we are indebted, in the first instance, to 
the power of commercial association of which we have spoken. 

The power, however, would have availed little if the possessors of it had 
not been willing to allow it to be used for the benefit of society in the precise 
way which the professional men indicated; and it is most honorable to our 
great commercial bodies that they have practically shown so much readiness 
to aid in enterprises of scientific character, that accredited men of science 
feel no difficulty in asking their assistance. 

We may congratulate the world on the growing tendency towards a closer 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 23 


union between science and commerce. The advantages to science in such 
instances as that which has formed the special subject of our comments, 
needs no further explanation. The advantages to commercial bodies, 
though less obvious, are equally certain. It is no small matter that these 
associations are enabled, without any offensive intrusion, to acquire the 
character of patrons of science; that the world is ready to acknowledge 
itself their debtor for assistance not promised in their original constitution. 
The exhibition of beneficial power without any prospect of immediate pecu- 
niary advantage, removes the mercenary element which might seem to be 
ingrafied in their original formation, and commerce thus acquires dignity 
from its friendly union with science. — Communicated by Prof. Airy, Astron- 
omer Royal to the London Times. 


THE MILITARY RESOURCES OF FRANCE EMPLOYED IN THE 
RUSSIAN WAR. 

A French official document, of unusual interest, has recently been pub- 
lished by Marshal Vaillant, the minister of war, giving a detailed account 
of all the supplies furnished by France, in men and materials, for carrying on 
the late war on the part of that nation with Russia. The following is the 
substance of the facts presented, divested as much as possible, of abstract 
numerical statements. The results furnish a most striking illustration of 
the increased efficiency and power which a modern military force derives, 
through its appropriation of the various improved processes which have been 
primarily developed for the benefit of commerce and the industrial arts. 

The French draw a very useful line between the personel and the materiel 
of an army, — words which succinctly denote the men who are to serve, and 
the supplies which render the service possible. We have no equally con- 
venient terms in English. ‘The statistics of the report in question, are di- 
vided into four departments, — the Personel, Materiel, Accessories and Trans- 
port. 

Personel.— France sent over, to engage in the war against Russia, 
309,268 soldiers, and 41,974 horses, of which numbers about one sixth em- 
barked from Algeria, and the rest from France. Of these, about 70,000 
were killed, died, or returned missing on various accounts. There were 
146,000 French soldiers in and near the Crimea on the day when the treaty 
of peace was signed. Of the horses, 9,000 returned to France, and the 
greater part of the balance were sold to the Turkish government. 

In three months, the large French army entirely left the Crimea, although 
double that time was allowed by the terms of the Treaty of Peace. 

Materiel. — The munitions and supplies for two years and a half of service 
for such an army, at such a distance, were necessarily vast — comprising, as 
they did, battle and siege weapons of all kinds; the food, forage, clothing, 
tents, and harness for horses and men; the tools and implements required 
for encamping, rather than for fighting ; and the ambulances, medicines, and 
other requirements for the sick and the wounded. 

The great guns, howitzers, and mortars, were not less than 644 in num- 
ber; besides 603 contributed by the marine, and 140 Turkish, of various 


94 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


kinds. There were more thon 800 gun-carriages, and nearly as many am- 
munition wagons and vehicles of other kinds pertaining to artillery opera- 
tions. All this was for the siege-works alone ; the lighter artillery for field- 
service presented a further store of guns, carriages, and vehicles, making the 
vast total of about 1,700 pieces of cannon, and 4,800 wheel-vehicles required 
for their service, sent from France during the war. As may be readily sup- 
posed, the missiles to be vomited forth by these instruments of destruction 
were numbered by millions rather than by thousands, Their array was 
fearfully vast: 2,000,000 of cannon balls, shells and similar projectiles ; 
10,000,000 pounds of gunpowder, in barrels ; and 66,000,000 ball-cartridges 
for muskets and rifles. If Sebastopol had not fallen when it did, France 
was prepared to plant against it no fewer than 400 mortars of large calibre, 
besides all the other siege-ordnance, each furnished with 1,000 rounds of 
shell, sufficient for a continuous bombardment during twenty days and 
nights, at the rate of fourteen bomb-shells per minute. The siege-works out- 
side Sebastopol, led to the construction, sooner or later, of more than one 
hundred batteries. Marshal Vaillant estimates the whole weight of the 
artillery, guns and ammunition, and all the appliances, at 50,000,000 kilo- 
grammes — about 56,000 tons English — all carried over sea from France 
to the Crimea. 

But the engineering materials —the materiel du genie—were over and 
above all those hitherto mentioned. The sappers, miners, engineers, all 
who were employed in trench duty, mechanical labor, and the like, had im- 
plements and materials in immense variety and number. Picks, shovels, 
boring-tools, sand-bags, palisades, chevaux-de-frise, ventilators, smoke-balls, 
mills, capstans, ladders, carriages, chests, wheels, planks, iron bars, nails, 
pitch, tar, candles, charcoal, canvas, mining-powder, tents, wooden huts — 
all these gave a total in weight of 14,000,000 kilogrammes, — 14,000 tons. 
Among the largest items were 920,000 sand-bags, and 3,000 wooden huts or 
barracks. ‘The marshal states that the materiel du genie was five times as 
great as would have been required, with the same strength of army, for a 
siege conducted under ordinary circumstances ; so exceptional and remark- 
able was everything connected with the attack on Sebastopol, especially the 
wintering on a bleak barren plateau. The engineers, during the siege, con- 
structed fifty miles of trench, in which they used 60,000 facines or bundles 
of fagots, 80,000 gabions or baskets for earth, and nearly 1,000,000 bags 
filled with earth; besides ten miles of “lines,” or defence-works, on the 
margin of the siege-camp, to prevent the besiegers from being themselves be- 
sieged. These “lines” were not mere heaps of earth hastily thrown up; 
they were deep trenches, excavated mostly in solid rock, breasted by thick 
and high parapets, and defended at intervals by strong redoubts. Besides 
all this, the French and the Russians, during their antagonistic operations 
of mining and counter-mining, formed no less than five miles of subterrane- 
ous galleries or passages in the solid rock, in some places as much as fifty 
feet below the surface of the ground. 

Those readers who may feel bewildered at these vast military operations, 
will have less difficulty in appreciating the necessity for enormous supplies 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 25 


of food for the soldiers ; but even here, the real quantities almost transcend 
one’s power of belief. The food sent out to the French army included, 
among many smaller items, about 30,000,000 pounds * of biscuit, 50,000,000 
pounds of flour, 7,000,000 pounds of preserved beef, 14,000,000 pounds of 
salt meat and lard, 8,000,000 pounds of rice, 4,500,000 pounds of coffee, and 
6,000,000 pounds of sugar; these, with 10,000 head of live cattle, and 
2,500,000 gallons of wine, were the main supplies for provisioning the 
troops. Nearly 1,000,000 pounds of Chollet’s compressed vegetables were 
among the smaller but most welcome items. Nearly all the preserved meat, 
in canisters, was purchased of English and Scotch firms; and the war 
having ended before the vast supply was consumed, the remainder has 
lately been sold by auction in London, by order of the French government. 
The collateral manufactures and outlay to which the shipment of these 
stupendous quantities of food necessarily led, were in themselves remark- 
able; for instance, no less than 260,000 chests and barrels were required to 
contain the biscuits alone, and 1,000,000 sacks and bags for other articles. 
The horse-food, simple in kind, presented a few large items: such as, 
170,000,000 pounds of hay, and 180,000,000 pounds of oats and barley. 
4,000,000 pounds of wood for fuel, 40,000,000 pounds of coal, charcoal, and 
coke, 150 ovens to bake the food, 140 presses to compress the hay. These 
help to make up the enormous total of 500,000 tons weight sent out, relating 
to food, fodder, and fuel; requiring 1,800 voyages of ships to convey them 
to the east 

The clothing —another ereat department of materiel—comprised gar- 
ments in such hundreds of thousands as it would be wearisome to enumerate. 
It may afford, however, a clue to the matter to state that the number of each 
of the chief items generally ranges from 200,000 to 350,000. Some of the 
items are quite French; such as 240,000 pairs of sabots, or wooden shoes, 
superadded to the 360,000 pairs of leather shoes and boots. The piercing 
cold of the Crimean winter is brought again into remembrance by such 
entries as 15,000 sheepskin paletots, 250,000 pairs of sheepskin and Bul- 
garian gaiters, and 250,000 capotes and hoods. The materials for camps 
and tents,—almost as necessary to the soldiers as clothing, — were, of 
course, vast in variety and quantity. There were tents sufficient to accom- 
modate 280,000 men ; those made and used in the first instance were shaped 
somewhat like the roof of a house, with two upright supports, one at each 
end; but after the dreadful hurricane on November 14, 1854, the French 
adopted the Turkish form of tent — conical, with one central support — as 
being better fitted to resist a violent wind. The harness and farriery de- 
partment presented, as the most curious items, 800,000 horse-shoes, and 
6,000,000 horse-shoe nails. Altogether, about 20,000 tons weight of men’s 
clothing, horse clothing, and tent apparatus was sent out. 

Accessories. — The artillery supplies, the engineering supplies, the food, 
fodder, fuel, clothing, harness, and camp apparatus, although furnishing the 


*In giving equivalents for French measures and weights, we have estimated the 
metre at about forty inches, and the kilogramme at 21-5th pounds, English. 


38 


26 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


great bulk of the material, yet leave many other departments unnoticed, 
which we may call accessories, —such as medical service, the treasury, the - 
post-office, the printing-office, and the telegraph. 

In no department did the French excel the English so much as in hos- 
pital arrangements ; at least during the first half of the war-period. If it 
had not been for Miss Nightingale, and a few other brave hearts, the deaths, 
through want of the commonest medicines and necessaries, in the English 
camp and hospitals, would have been much more numerous than they were. 
. The French sent over 27,000 bedsteads for invalids, about the same num- 
ber of mattresses, and 40,000 coverlets. ‘There were also thirty complete 
sets of furniture and appliances of every kind, for movable hospitals of 500 
invalids each. There were materials for ambulances for 24,000 sick men, 
600 cases of surgical instruments, and no less than 700,000 pounds weight 
of lint, bandages, and dressings of various kinds. ‘Then, for the sustenance 
of the sick and wounded, there were such medical comforts as concentrated 
milk, essence of bouillon, granulated gluten. Chollet’s conserves, etc., to the 
amount of 200,000 pounds. S 

The military train, or equipages militaires, were the carriers of the army, 
so long as that army was on Turkish or Russian ground. The number of 
vehicles required for this service was enormous, the tilted wagons, wagons 
without tilts, Maltese carriages, Marseille charrettes, and Turkish arabas and 
tekis, provided for the use of the French military train, were 2,900 in num- 
ber. There were 900 large chests, to contain about 1,400 soldiers’ daily 
rations each. Altogether, there were 14,000 men and 20,000 horses, mules, 
oxen, and buffaloes, engaged in carrying food and baggage to the troops. 

The treasury, the military-chest—an important adjunct to any army — 
was well attended to in the French army of the Crimea, by a staff of officers 
comprising about ninety persons, who managed the post-office as well as the 
funds. Marshal Vaillant asserts that the French soldiers received their pay 
and their letters with as much correctness and punctuality outside Sebasto- 
pol, as if they had been garrisoned in France. The money was sent over, 
partly in cash, and partly in treasury notes, which were readily taken by the 
larger traders in the east. The money thus expended at the seat of war, 
amounted to 285,000,000 francs, or £11,000,000 ; this was irrespective of the 
sums, of course many times larger in amount, expended i in France on mat- 
ters pertaining to the war. 

Klectro-telegraphy and printing are novel items in the operations of the 
hattle-field. They indicate two among many changes which are coming 
over the art of war. Both semaphores and electric-telegraphs were provided 
to communicate orders from head-quarters to the various army-corps en- 
camped outside Sebastopol; and a staff of about sixty persons was told off 
for this service. ‘The semaphores were wooden telegraphs, which could be 
set up or removed at a short notice. Besides this, England having laid 
down a submarine telegraphic-cable from Balaklava to Varna, France 
undertook to connect that cable with the net-work of European telegraphs, 
by a line from Varna into the Danubian Principalities, nearly two hundred 
miles in length; and, a staff of forty persons, stationed at Varna, Shumla, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 27 


Rustchuk, and Bucharest, managed this line. As to printing, a lithographic 
press, at head-quarters, sufficed at first for the wants of the service; but when 
the siege commenced, General Canrobert found it necessary to issue two or 
more copies of so many orders, that he procured a complete typographic ap- 
paratus from Paris. 

Transport. — Lastly, Marshal Vaillant tells us of the vast maritime pre- 
parations — not for fighting the Russians — but for conveying French armies 
over the sea, that they might fight the Russians. 

The French imperial navy lent 132 ships to the army for this service ; and 
these ships made 905 voyages, carrying—either going or returning — 
270,000 men, 4,300 horses, and 116,000 tons of material. Besides this, the 
English Admiralty lent eight ships-of-war and forty-two chartered vessels to 
France, to aid in carrying the enormous military burden. But far larger in 
number were the merchant-ships directly nolise, or chartered by the French 
government, amounting to 1264 of all kinds. A fine fleet of sixty-six 
steamers and twenty-two fast clippers was constantly making to-and-fro 
voyages during the war; and in addition to these, there were vessels em- 
ployed in carrying food and fodder from various parts in Turkey and Asia 
Minor to the Crimea. ‘Taken in its totality, including all the voyages made 
by all the men, horses, and materials, there were conveyed by the French 
government, during a period of two years and a half, 550,000 men, 50,000 
horses, and 720,000 tons of materiel. 

The marshal adds: “The personnel and the materiel embarked at Mar- 
seille were brought to that port, in the larger proportion, by jhe line of rail- 
way stretching from Paris towards the Mediterranean. If that iron road had 
not existed, the operations of the war would have certainly lest much of 
their ensemble and their rapidity.” 

Here closes our brief notice of this remarkable document, which, it will be 
seen, relates wholly to that part of the warlike proceedings in which the 
French Minister of War was concerned, excluding all that came under the 
Minister of Marine. 


RECENT FRENCH INVENTIONS OF IMPORTANCE. 


The following prizes were awarded last year by the French Sociéié 
d’Encouragement pour VIndustrie Nationale for inventions and improye- 
ments in manufactures : 

Gold medals were awarded: To M. J. Dubose for having executed the 
first portable stereoscope, thus rendering the use of that instrument ex- 
tremely easy. Stereoscopes are now sold in France to the amount of 
several millions of francs. To M. Guérin, the inventor of a system of self- 
acting brakes for railway trains. When the stoker has shut off the steam, 
and taken the usual precautions for stopping the train, the effect is, that the 
nearer the carriages are to the tender, the closer they approach each other, 
so that, while the last and forelast vehicles of the train are still apart, the 
buffers of the first and second have already met, and their shafts are driven 
further in than those of the third, fourth, etc. This circumstance has been 


28 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


turned to account by M. Guérin, for the buffers act upon his brake while 
they are being driven in, and the brake resumes its former position as soon 
as the train has stopped, in consequence of the gradual action of the springs 
of the buffers. These brakes are now extensively used on the Orleans Rail- 
way. To M.I. Pierre, Professor of Chemistry at Caen, for his researches 
into the efficacy of marine manures. To M. Fritz-Sollier, a manufacturer 
of India-rubber articles, for having re-discovered a method — previously 
found, but neglected, by M.M. Sace and Jonas in 1846 —for transforming 
linseed oil into a substance resembling caoutchouc, by treating it with nitric 
acid. This new compound is now applied for making water-proof stuffs, 
saddlery, ete. To M.M. Gérard and Aubert for a process by which caout- 
chouc may, without undergoing a previous dissolution, be rolled out into 
thin leaves, threads, or pipes. They also are the inventors of the alkali- 
zation of that substance, a process which renders it less brittle and much 
stronger than vulcanized caoutchouc. To M.M. Perreaux and Clair; to 
the former for his India-rubber valves, and other improvements in instru- 
ment making ; and to the latter for a new kind of dynamometer. Medals of 
platinum were given to M. Derrien, for his manufacture of artificial manure 
of invariable fertilizing power; and to M. E. Muller, for a work on agricul- 
tural and workmen’s habitations. Silver medals were awarded to Mr. Stan- 
ley, for the manufacture of articles in basalt and lava: to M. Dumesnil, for 
an improved plaster-kiln; to M. Gaudonnet, for improvements in piano- 
fortes; to M. Tripon, fora process of aquatint washing on stone, imitating 
Indian ink drawings; to M.M. Carmoy and Colas, for gilt nails and a 
machine for making them ; to Dr. Benet, for a contrivance for washing foul 
linen by pressure; to Dr. Guyot, for a loom for weaving at a very trifling 
cost straw mats, for gardening purposes; and to M. Klein, fora plan for 
retailing good and nutritious food to the poor in portions of the value of five 
centimes each. Bronze medals were awarded: to M. de Luca, for an im- 
provement in blowing pipes, producing an uninterrupted stream of air by 
means of a hollow ball of India-rubber, acting as a reservoir; to M. Troc- 
con, for an improvement in the lamps called moderators; to M.M. Lacas- 
sagne and Thiers, for a regulator applicable to the electric light; to M. 
Bruno, for a writing-apparatus for blind people, consisting in a steel point, 
producing letters in relief on a kind of paper used for counterdrawing; to 
M. Masse, of Tours, a blind man, for a curious and ingenious contrivance, 
by which those who, like him, have had the misfortune to lose their eye- 
sight, may express their ideas on paper by means of printing-types; to M. 
Colard Vienot, for an apparatus enabling the blind to write music; to M. 
Devisme, for an improvement in revolvers, by applying to them the prin- 
ciple of the Minie rifle; to. M. Vitard, a carpenter, for an instrument by 
which the cubic contents of timber or trees may be ascertained off-hand; to 
J. Pouillen, for a bed, of peculiar contrivance, for patients ; to M. Heilbronn, 
for a process by which zine may receive a coating of paint as durable as that 
which may be given to sheet-iron; to M. More, fora flexible globe for the 
study of geography, admitting of its being folded up like an umbrella; to 
M.M. Lenz and Houdard, for a system of pedals and counter-pedals in 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 29 


pianos, by which the highest notes may be simultaneously combined with 
the lowest; and, lastly, to M. Tiget, for an economical process of baking 
bricks. 


THE GREAT EASTERN, OR LEVIATHAN, STEAMSHIP. 


The following paper, descriptive of the Great Eastern Steamship, was read 
before the British association by Mr. J. Scott Russell, her constructor : 

With respect to her size, it is generally supposed, said Mr. Russell, that, 
as a practical ship-builder, he was an advocate for big ships. The con- 
trary, however, was the fact. There were cases in which big ships were 
good, and there were certain cases in which big ships were ruinous to their 
owners. In every case, the smallest ship that would supply the convenience 
of trade was the right ship to build. He came there as an advocate of little 
ships, and it was the peculiarity of the Great Eastern that she was the 
smallest ship capable of doing the work she was intended to do; and he 
believed that if she answered the purpose for which she was designed, she 
would continue to be the smallest ship possible for her voyage. It was 
found by experience that no steamship could be worked profitably which 
was of less size than a ton to a mile of the voyage she was to perform, car- 
rying her own coal. Thus, a ship intended to ply between England and 
America, would not pay permanently unless she were of twenty-five hundred 
or three thousand tons burden. In like manner, if a vessel were intended to 
go from this country to Australia or India, without coaling en route, but 
taking her coals with her, she would require to be thirteen thousand tons 
burden; and, turning to the case before them, it would be found that the 
big ship was a little short of the proper size. Her voyage to Australia and 
back would be twenty-five thousand miles; her tonnage, therefore, should 
be twenty-five thousand tons, whereas its actual amount was twenty-two 
thousand tons. The idea of making a ship large enough to carry her own 
coals for a voyage to Australia and back again, was the idea of a man 
famous for large ideas — Mr. Brunel. He suggested the matter to him (Mr. 
Russell) as a practical ship-builder, and the result was the monster vessel 
which he was about to describe. He had peculiar pleasure in laying a de- 
scription of the lines of the ship before the present meeting, because the ship 
as a naval structure, as far as her lines were concerned, was a child of that 
section of the British Association. It was twenty-two years since they had 
the pleasure of meeting together in Dublin. On that occasion he laid 
before the mechanical section a form of construction which had since 
become well known as the wave line. The section received the idea so well 
that it appointed a committee to examine into the matter with the intention, 
if they found the wave principle to be the true principle, to proclaim it to the 
world. The committee pursued its investigations, publishing the results in 
the account of their transactions, and from that time to the present he had 
continued to make large and small vessels on the wave principle, and the 
diffusion of this knowledge through the Transactions of the British Associa- 
tion had led to its almost universal adoption. Wherever they found a steam- 
vessel with a high reputation for speed, economy of fuel, and good qualities 


2° 
Fay 2s 


30 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


at sea, he would undertake to say that they would find she was constructed 
on the wave principle. Mr. Robert M’Kay, the builder of the great Ameri- 
ean clipper, paid him a visit twelve months ago at Millwall, to. see the big 
ship, and he then very candidly said, “‘ Mr. Russell, I have adopted the wave 
principle in the construction of all my American clippers, and that is my 
secret. I first found the account of the wave line in the publications of the 
British Association.” He would endeavor to explain what were the prin- 
ciples of the wave line as distinguished from the older-fashioned modes of 
building, and how they were carried out in the big ship. All practical men 
knew that the first thing a ship-builder had to think of was what was called 
the mid-ship section of the vessel,—that was the section which would be 
made if the ship were cut through the middle, and the spectator saw the cut 
portions. Mr. Russell here pointed out a diagram of the mid-ship section 
of the Wave, a small vessel about seven and a half tons burden, which was 
the first ever constructed upon that principle. Now, the first thing to be 
done in building a steam-vessel was to make a calculation of the size of the 
mid-ship section in the water. In sailing from one place to another, it was 
necessary to excavate a canal out of the water large enough to allow the 
whole body of the ship to pass through. The problem was how to do that 
most economically, and this was effected by making the canal as narrow 
and as shallow as possible, so that there would be the smallest quantity of 
water possible to excavate. Therefore it was that the ship-builder endea- 
vored to obtain as small a mid-ship section as he could, and that had been 
effected in the case of the big ship, whose mid-ship section was small— not 
small absolutely, but small in proportion. In increasing the tonnage of a 
ship, three things are to be considered —the paying power, the propelling 
power, and the dimensions. Mr. Russell then entered into a calculation to 
show that while he doubled the money-earning power of a ship by increasing 
its size, he only increased its mid-ship section by fifty per cent. For in- 
stance, a ship of twenty-five hundred tons would have five hundred feet of 
excavation through the water to do; the big ship had two thousand feet of 
excavation, and the lineal dimensions of the one were to the lineal dimen- 
sions of the other as 1 to 2°1. The excavation to be done by the big ship 
in relation to that to be done by the small ship was as two thousand to five 
hundred feet, or four to one; but the carrying power was as twenty-five 
thousand to twenty-five hundred. To propel the big ship they had a nomi- 
nal horse power of twenty-five hundred, while to propel the smaller vessel 
there was a nominal horse power of five hundred; so that the big ship would 
be worked quite as economically as the small one. Referring again to the 
waye line, he would suppose that it was given as a problem to any one to 
design a ship on the wave principle. The first thing to be done was to settle 
the speed at which the ship was intended to go. If the specd were fixed at 
ten miles an hour, a reference to the table of the wave principle would show 
that, in order to effect that object, the length of the ship’s bows ought to be 
about sixty feet, and of her stern about forty. If a larger vessel were re- 
quired, say a ship of one hundred and thirty feet long, there would by noth- 
ing more to do than to put a middle body, of thirty feet in length, between 


: MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 31 


the bow and the stern. Having then made the width of the ship in accord- 
ance with the mid-ship section agreed upon, it would be necessary to draw 
what was known as the wave line on both sides of the bow, and the wave 
line of the second order on both sides of the stern. Constructed in this 
manner, and propelled by the ordinary amount of horse-power, the ship 
would sail precisely ten miles an hour. They could go slower than ten 
miles an hour if necessary, and in doing so they would economize fuel in 
consequence of the diminished resistance of the water, whereas there would 
be a vastly-increased resistance if an attempt were made to drive the steamer 
more than ten miles an hour. Now, with respect to the big ship. For the 
speed at which it was intended to drive the Great Eastern, it was found that 
the length of the bow should be three hundred and thirty feet, the length of 
the stern two hundred and twenty feet, of the middle body one hundred and 
twenty feet, and of the screw propeller ten feet, making in all six hundred 
and eighty feet in length. The lines on which she was constructed were 
neither more nor less than an extended copy of the lines of all ships which he 
had built since he first laid the wave principle before the Association. It 
was his pride that he had not put a single experiment or novelty into the 
structure of the vessel, with one or two exceptions, which he had adopted on 
the recommendation of mcn who had had practical experience of their effi- 
cacy. The wave principle had never, in a single instance, deceived him as 
to the exact shape a vessel ought to be in order to accomplish a certain rate 
of speed, and he had therefore adopted it in the construction of the big ship. 
He would next refer to the mechanical construction of the ship, the arrange- 
ment of the iron of which she was made, and the objects of those arrange- 
ments. It was much tobe desired that our mechanical sciences should make 
progress by the-simple adoption of what was best, come from where it might ; 
but he was sorry to say that iron ship-building did not grow in that manner. 
They commenced by servilely imitating the construction of wooden ships, 
thereby incurring a great deal of unnecessary labor and expense. There 
was this great difference between the strength of iron and of wood, that, whilst 
the latter was weak crossways and strong lengthways, or with the grain of 
the timber, iron was almost equally strong either way. This had been 
clearly ascertained by experiments made by Mr. Fairbairn and Mr. M. 
Hodgkinson, at the request of the British Association, in whose Transactions 
the results were published. The consequence was, that the ribs or frames 
used to strengthen wooden ships, were rendered unnecessary in iron ship- 
building ; and, acting on this principle, the Wave was built of iron entirely, 
with bulkheads, and had not a frame in her from one end to the other. He 
was ashamed to say that he did not always practise what he preached. He 
was compelled, against his will, by the persons for whom he built, to pursue 
the old system; besides which there were laws of trade, acts of Parliament, 
and Lloyd’s rule, to which he was obliged to conform. Thus, if be did not 
put a certain number of frames on the ship, a black mark would be put upon 
ner, and she would not be allowed to go to sea. But whenever he was al- 
lowed to build according to his judgment, he built in what he considered to 
be the best way; and he believed that in what he was now placing before the 


32 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVFRY 


section, he was laying the grounds of meeting the British Association that 
day twenty years, and finding that the mode of mechanical construction 
which he proposed had been as universally adopted as the wave principle, 
because of the publications of the British Association. Mr. Scott Russell 
then proceeded to give an elaborate description of the old method of con- 
structing an iron ship, contrasting it with the improved style which he pur- 
sued at present. Instead of the mass of wooden rubbish, which did not 
strengthen the ship, and involved enormous expense, he placed inside the 
iron shell as many complete bulkheads as the owner permitted him to do, 
and then constructed in the intermediate spaces partial bulkheads, or bulk- 
heads in the centre of which holes had been cut for the purposes of stowage. 
The deck was strengthened by the introduction of pieces of angle-iron and 
other contrivances, and, as an iron ship, when weak, was not weak cross- 
ways, but lengthways, he strengthened it in this direction by means of two 
longitudinal bulkheads, and the result was a strength and solidity which 
could not be obtained in any other way. The Great Eastern had all these 
improvements, and, in addition, the cellular system, so successfully applied 
in the Britannia Bridge, had been introduced all round the bottom and 
under the deck of the ship, giving the greatest amount of strength to resist 
crushing that could be procured. As he had already observed, there was 
nothing new in the ship but her great size and cellular construction. It was 
true she would be propelled both by a screw and paddles, but there was no 
reason to doubt that they would work harmoniously. 

In connection with this paper of Mr. Russell, the following notice of this 
gigantic steamer, copied from the Liverpool Albion, is worthy of record : 

Granting that the mammoth ship is merely an extended copy of all other 
iron steamers built on the wave line principle, let us see what are the “one 
or two exceptions,” so modestly alluded to by Mr. Russell before the British 
Association at Dublin. The most prominent, in reality, though a feature 
which escapes unprofessional visitors, is the cellular construction of the 
upper deck, and the lower part of the hull, up to the water line, or about 
thirty feet from her bottom, which is as flat as the floor of a room. This 
system, while it gives greater buoyancy to the hull, increases her strength 
enormously, and thus enables her to resist almost any outward pressure. 
Two walls of iron, about sixty feet high, divide her longitudinally into three 
parts, the inner containing the boilers, the engine rooms, and the saloons, 
rising one above the other, and the lateral divisions the coal bunkers, and, 
above them, the side cabins and berths. The saloons are sixty feet in 
length, the principal one nearly half the width of the vessel, and lighted by 
skylights from the upper deck. On either side are the cabins and berths, 
those of first-class being commodious rooms, large enough to contain every 
requirement of the most fastidious of landsmen. The thickness of the lower 
deck will prevent any sound from the engine-rooms reaching the passengers, 
and the vibration from being at all felt by them. Each side of the engine- 
rooms is a tunnel, through which the steam and water pipes will be carried, 
and also rails for economizing labor in conveyance of coal. .The berths of 
the crew are forward, below the forecastle, which it is intended to appropriate 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 33 


to the officers, whose apartments are at present only marked by a few up- 
rights, rising ten or twelve feet above the main deck. Below the berths of 
the seamen are two enormous cavities, for cargo, of which five thousand tons 
can be carried, besides coals enough for the voyage to Australia, making 
about as many tons more. 

The weight ef this huge ship being 12,000 tons, and coal and cargo about 
18,000 tons more, the motive power to propel her twenty miles per hour 
must be proportionate. If the visitor walks aft, and looks down a deep 
chasm near the stern, he will perceive an enormous metal shaft, 160 feet in 
length, and weighing sixty tons; this extends from the engine-room nearest 
the stern to the extremity of the ship, and is destined to move the screw, the 
four fans of which are of proportionate weight and dimensions. If next he 
waik forward, and look over the side, he will see a paddle-wheel considerably 
larger than the circle at Astley’s; and when he learns that this wheel and its 
fellow will be driven by four engines, haying a nominal power of 1,000 
horses, and the screw by a nominal power of 1,600 horses, he will have no 
difficulty in conceiving a voyage to America in seven and to Australia in 
thirty-five days. The screw engines designed and manufactured by Messrs. 
James Watt & Co., are far the largest ever constructed, and when making 
fifty revolutions per minute, will exert an effective force of not less than 
8,000 horses. It is difficult to realize the work which this gigantic force 
would perform if applied to the ordinary operations of commerce ; it would 
raise 132,000 gallons of water to the top of the Monument in one minute, or 
drive the machinery of forty of the largest cotton-mills in Manchester, giving 
employment to from thirty to forty thousand operatives. There are four 
cylinders, each about twenty-five tons, and eighty-four inches in diameter. 
The crank-shaft, to which the connecting rods are applied, weighs about 
thirty tons. The boilers are six in number, having seventy-two furnaces; 
and an absorbent heating-surface nearly equal in extent to an acre of ground. 
The total weight exceeds 1,200 tons, yet so contrived that they can be set in 
motion or stopped by a single hand. 

Sails will not be much needed, for in careering over the Atlantic at twenty 
miles per hour, with a moderate wind, they would rather impede than aid ; but 
in the event of a strong wind arising, going twenty-five miles per hour in the 
course of the vessel, sails may be used with advantage, and the Great Eastern 
is provided accordingly, with seven masts, two square-rigged, the others carry- 
ing fore and aft sails only. The larger masts will be iron tubes, the smaller of 
wood. The funnels, of which there will be five, alternating with the masts, are 
constructed with double casings, and the space between the outer and inner 
casings will be filled with water, which will answer the double purpose of pre- 
venting the radiation of heat to the decks, and economizing coal by causing the 
water to enter the boilers in a warm state. Her rigging will probably cause 
most disturbance of ideas to nautical observers, for, besides the unusual 
number of masts, she will want two most striking features of all other vessels, 
namely, bowsprit and figure-head. Another peculiarity is the absence of a 
poop. The captain’s apartment is placed amidships, immediately below the 
bridge, whence the electric telegraph will flash the commander’s orders to the 


34 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


engineer below, helmsman at the wheel, and look-out man at the bows. In 
iron vessels great precautions being necessary to prevent the compass from 
being influenced by the mass of metal in such attractive proximity, various 
experiments have been made with the view of discovering the best mode of 
overcoming this. It was originally intended to locate the compass upon a 
stage, forty feet high, but this plan has been abandoned, and a standard 
compass will be affixed to the mizzen-mast, at an elevation beyond the mag- 
netic influence of the ship. 

The preparations made for launching the “ Leviathan” are of a novel 
character, and have been described as follows : — 

Two strong and powerfully-built tramways have been constructed, running 
from under the fore and aft portions of the vessel down to spring tide low- 
water mark. Each of these ways is 300 feet long by 120 wide, and the dis- 
tance between them is also about 120 feet. To guard against the shifting 
nature of the river mud, the ways are constructed with unusual solidity and 
strength. The foundation of each is formed upon seven rows of piles, the 
four outside rows being driven in at three feet intervals, and the inner rows 
at six feet. These piles are all forced home to the gravel of the river’s bed, 
so that they graduate from thirty-two feet long under the ship’s bottom to 
ten feet at low-water mark. To both sides of the pile-heads strong timbers 
are securely bolted, and the whole area covered with concrete to a thickness 
of two feet. Above the concrete longitudinal timbers of great strength are 
secured at intervals of three and a half feet, and run the entire length. Over 
these again are transverse timbers, three feet apart, bolted down, to keep 
them fixed under the pressure they will have to bear, and to prevent them 
floating at high tide. On these, but running straight to the water, railway 
metals are screwed at intervals of eighteen inches. The rails complete the 
launching ways, which thus form a massive road, stretching from under the 
ship to low-water mark, at an incline of one in twelve. Down these ways the 
vessel will be slowly lowered into the water on the cradles under her, which 
are constructed of large hulks of timber, wedged with a ponderous machine 
like a battering-ram, so as to perfectly fit the ship’s bottom. The timbers 
are laid principally athwartships, with longitudinal beams fastened to the 
outer sides, and all are bolted together, and loaded with iron to prevent their 
floating with the vessel. The bottom of the cradle consists of iron bars, 
placed at intervals of a foot, and with their edges carefully ground off, so as 
to offer no resistance to the metals over which they will have to pass. Both 
launching ways rise slightly in the centre, in order to allow for the depres- 
sion which is certain to be produced by the passage of such an enormous 
weight over their surface. Before the launch the metals will be thickly 
coated with a composition of tallow and black lead, so as to offer no ob- 
struction. 

The chief points upon which the energies of Mr. Brunel have been concen- 
trated were, first, to overcome the momentum of such a mass down an in- 
cline of one in twelve, and prevent her, when once in motion, from dashing 
entirely away; secondly, if stopped from any cause upon the ways, to pro- 
vide sufficient purchase from the water to slowly pull her into motion again. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 30 


As far as human ingenuity and skill can foresee, the former danger has been 
provided against, and the apparatus forms the most ponderous system of 
check tackle ever constructed. ‘To the centre of each cradie is fastened the 
iron sheave to which the check tackle is attached, weighing five tons. 
Wrought iron chains of the largest size connect these with two other 
sheaves, each secured to a drum, which pays out the chain and regulates 
the whole operation. These drums and the framework on which they rest 
having to bear the strain of the whole mass in motion, extraordinary precau- 
tions have been taken to render them as massive as they could be made by 
any known combination of wood and iron. The axles are formed of beams 
of timber and strips of wrought iron bound together, forming a drum twenty 
feet iong and nine feet in diameter. The discs are solid iron, sixteen feet 
in diameter, and weighing upwards of twenty tons, so that the weight of each 
drum is more than sixty tons. The axle is set in aniron frame, and round 
its outer edge passes a band of wrought iron, to work in the manner of a 
break, which, with the aid of strong iron levers, twenty feet long, brings such 
a pressure upon the drum as to lessen its revolutions, or entirely stop them, in 
ease the chain is being paid out too fast. Our readers may naturally ask 
what holds the drums themselves? ‘The frame in which the work is set is a 
solid piece of timber, formed by driving piles forty feet in length, and going 
down to the gravel. The whole is bound together with iron, and strong 
shores pass from the piles to the bed of piles on which the ways are con- 
structed ; so that, whatever the strain, it would be impossible for the setting 
of the druins to give way unless the river bank gave way with it. 

These are the appliances for preventing the monster running down too 
fast; but a powerful apparatus has been devised to act in a contrary man- 
ner, namely: to pull her off the ways in case of her sticking fast on them 
through any unforeseen contretempts. For this purpose four lighters are 
moored about 100 yards from the shore, fitted with crabs and sheaves. Each 
crab gives a strain of sixty tons, and this force of 240 tons, if necessary at 
all, is to be applied amidships. Two lighters will also be moored at the stem 
and two at the stern, and the chains passing to these from the ship will re- 
turn on shore, so as to be worked with a double purchase. Stationary en- 
2ines of twenty-horse power will haul in the chains, making the whole force 
available to pull the vessel off upwards of GOV tons. 

It only remains to add, as a matter of scientific record, that since the 
above was written the launch of the ereat steamer has been effected.—Ed. 
attempted. — Editor. ; 


ON SCREW PROPELLERS. 


The following communication on the above subject, by Prof. W. R. Hop- 
kins, U. S. Naval Academy, is copied from Silliman’s Journal ; — 

Is it not strange that while in heavy machinery on land revolving at high 
velocities no difficulty is found in preventing heating in the journals, from 
friction, that few propellers are afloat at sea that have not snffered seriously 
from this cause? We hear ef vessels on both sides of the Atlantic, riercan- 


36 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tile and armed, that are retarded by the heating and wearing in the stuffing . 
boxes and bearings of their shafts. 

It appears to the writer that the causes for this can be ous explained, 
and the effects modified if not prevented. The heating of the bearings 
inside a vessel results from one cause: the wear and heat in the stuffing box 
aud outside journals result from totally different causes. 

In most cases the machinery of a steamship is placed in the centre of the 
vessel, and thence motion is carried to the propeller blades by a long shaft 
rigidly connected. If the frame of the vessel springs at all by the moiion 
of the sea, the shaft is thrown out of line, and must consequently heat. To 
remedy this the shaft should be allowed some play in the couplings where 
the /engths of the shaft are joined together. 

But it is the wearing of the journals and bearings outside the vessel that 
is most prejudicial, most frequent, and most difficult of repair. One cause 
of this wear is that the blades are not made smooth and not balanced, so 
that the centre of rotation and the centre of gravity do not coincide. No 
machinery in revolving works well under these circumstances. 

But the most important disturbing cause is the following. The propeller 
blades of a vessel on leaving port are set in motion in a plane at right angles 
to the vessel’s keel. The propeller blades tend to “persist”? in this plane, 
and the greater their momentum the greater their resistance to any cause 
tending to draw them from this plane. But the motion of the vessel is a 
constant disturbing cause, and in resisting the motion of the vessel the re- 
volving propeller presses with great force on the bearings. 

Suppose, as in some vessels, the propeller (blades and hub) to weigh fif- 
teen tons: Propellers of this size have their centres of oscillation moved at 
the rate of thirty-six feet per second when in full action. We have then a 
weight of fifteen tons moving at thirty six feet per second, to be deflected 
from its line of action whenever the vessel rises or falls. The wear caused 
by this action has been attempted to be overcome by putting wooden linings 
in bearings ; how far successfully has yet to be shown. 

It would undoubtedly be better to remove the cause than to remedy 
the effects. It seems to the writer that the cause may be easily removed by 
simply so arranging the propeller blades (or the frame in which they are 
mounted), that the propeller blades can keep in the original plane of rota- 
tion however the vessel may move in a sea way. The plans for effecting this 
are not easily explained without drawings. But means of so arranging the 
propeller blades that they will keep vertical however the vessel may move 
will occur to most persons acquainted with machinery. 


MASKEL’S SLIDING KEEL. 


This invention consists of a plate of iron, or other suitable metal, which 
is moved vertically in a recess made for it in the keel. <A link at each end 
attaches the plate to the keel, provision being made by slitting the pin-holes 
of the links, to allow for the raising or lowering of the plate, which is 
accomplished by racks and pinions, or other suitable machinery, worked on 
the vessel’s decks, the attaching rods passing through water-tight tubes ex- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 37 


tending from the top side of the keel to the deck. The depth to which the 
sliding keel can be lowered, is of course limited by the depth of the main 
keel; being somewhat less, but its length being nearly that of the main keel, 
a sufficient area is presented to prevent that motion of the vessel technically 
termed “ flatting off,” which would otherwise take place under a side wind. 
The old fashioned sliding keel is objectionable, as the “well” or opening in 
which it slides runs fore and aft of the vessel, for one-fourth or one-third of 
her length, and requires the deck beams and frames for that length to be cut 
entirely through, thereby much diminishing the strength of the hull. Mr. 
Maskel’s plan requires no such sacrifice; nothing is cut through; but the 
hull is built in the usual way, except the recess in the main keel. For vessels 
navigating the shallow rivers and bays of our Southern coast it must prove 
valuable, particularly in the cotton districts, where the largest vessels of 
deep draught, unable to come in, are loaded by means of lighters. The plan 
is favorably reported on by a commission of United States Naval officers, 
and is approved by some of the most eminent naval architects of the country. 


NOVEL STEAM VESSEL. 

There is now in the course of construction, in London, a small steamship , 
built of iron upon a new principle, which the builders believe will accomplish an 
average speed of from twenty-five to thirty milesan hour. The invention, for 
which a patent has been obtained, is intended to be applied to special transit 
vessels only, and is not suitable to river steamers, or other vessels intended 
to be used where the water is shallow or the channels uncertain. Should the 
expectations of the builders be realized, a vessel built and fitted in the manner 
proposed can make the voyage from Liverpool to New York in five days, or 
from Liverpool to Melbourne in forty days. The novelty of the invention 
consists for the most part in constructing the vessel so that the centre of 
gravity is placed below the water line. This is effected by constructing a 
chamber called a “well” all along the bottom of the vessel, in which the 
machinery, coals and stores can be deposited. As it is not proposed that the 
vessel shail carry cargo, the centre of gravity will thus become a suspended 
instead of a supported body; and it is believed that this peculiar formation 
will materially decrease the area of resistance to the water. The sides of 
the vessel rise perpendicularly from the well; and although the appearance 
of the vessel at present is anything but graceful, the patentee is of opinion 
that her form is constructed so as to secure the greatest amount of speed 
compatible with safety. 

The improvements proposed to be carried out may be shortly described 
area as follows: 1. Vessels built according to this plan show a decrease in the 
of resistance to the water full thirty-five per cent. when measured against any 
other vessel of the same breadth of beam and draught of water, thus insur- 
ing greater speed. 2. They have a better disposition of the centre of grav- 
ity, a consequent increase in stability, and a decrease in the amount of oscil- 
lation, enabling them when required to carry a larger quantity of canvas 
than other vessels of the same size. 3. The engines are so constructed as 
to effect economy in space and weight, causing also a saving of coals equal 


4 


38 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to a sixth of the consumption of other marine engines. 4. The screw-pro- 
peller possesses greater power of propulsion than any other propeller yet in- 
troduced, by at least thirty per cent. 5. Attached to the engines is a power- 
ful steam signal whistle, so constructed as to give out a code of signals, by 
which captains of ships may communicate with each other, by sounds per- 
fectly intelligible, at a distance of three or four miles apart. The object of 
this portion of the invention is to prevent collisions at sea during dark nights 
or fogey weather. The novelty in the steam-propeller is confined to the 
manner of fixing the fans, so that each blade when revolving will clear the 
other of back water. This adaptation seems extremely simple. The intro- 
duction of a buoyant drum or boss, in which the root of the fan is fixed, 
also reduces the weight of the shaft by about two-thirds. The trial vessel, 
which will be ready for launching in a few days, is of sixty tons burthen, and 
when fitted with her engines and stores will weigh only fourteen tons. She is 
formed of plate iron one-eighth of an inch thick, with angle irons an inch 
and a half thick, and ribs fifteen inches apart. The inventor proposes to take 
her to New York when finished. There can be no doubt that light iron 
steamers, without cargo, and driven by high-pressure engines, can attain 
very great speed in passing through the water, but it would be premature to 
assert that the vessel now building will realize all the anticipations which 
the builders have formed of her powers. 

Large Screw Steamer.— The largest Screw Steamer hitherto constructed 
has been launched at Glasgow during the past year. She is intended for 
the Australian trade, and rates as of 1800 horse power. She is 2,800 tons bur- 
then ; beam, forty-two feet ; length over all, 360 feet ; depth of hold, thirty-one 
feet. She has two direct action engines, six tubular boilers, and a three-bladed 
propeller. She will carry 900 tons of goods, and her bunkers will stow 1,500 
tons of coal —enough for twenty-four days at full steam. It is unnecessary 
to say that this vessel is of iron, as none but iron screw-propellers are made 
in England. Thenumber of these vessels is rapidly increasing in the mother 
country, and they seem destined to supersede all others in the transportation 
of goods of some value. 


CLIFFORD’S INVENTION FOR LOWERING BOATS. 

The following is a detailed description of Clifford’s pian of lowering boats 
at sea, which has been already alluded to in the Annual of Scientific Dis- 
covery for 1857. The object of this important invention is to enable a man 
placed in a suspended boat to lower it safely at a moment’s notice, whether 
it be empty or full of passengers, and whether the sea is smooth or rough, 
whether the ship is at rest or in motion. In the centre of the boat, across 
the keel, is a small windlass ; at both ends an ordinary pulley is fastened to 
the keel, and immediately over each a friction pulley, (which will be 
described hereafter) is suspended by ropes attached to the sides of the boat. 
The boat being raised to the proper height by the usual means, and the ends 
of two suspending ropes of exactly the same length being firmly secured to 
the extremities of the davits, their other ends are passed through the friction 
pulleys, through the pulleys on the keel, and are loosely inserted in holes 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 39 


bored for the purpose through the windlass. Preparatory to this, a long 
rope, fastened to the windlass, had been wound around it; and this rope is 
now pulled upon, and the suspending ropes are in consequence wound round 
the windlass, and kept tight by securing the winding rcpe. The pulleys by 
which the boat has been raised are unhooked, and she is left suspended to 
the davits. For the purpose of lashing the boat to the ship, taere are on 
each davit two iron prongs, one nearly as high as the gunwale of the boat, 
and the other two feet lower than her keel. These prongs extend directly 
downward, so that any ring or thimble passed up them would fall by its 
own weight, if left unsustained. Ropes with thimbles at their ends are next 
hooked to the prongs, those from the upper prongs being passed over the 
nearest side of the boat, those from the lower ones under her and over the 
other side, while all four are tightly fastened inside of her. The boat is now 
suspended, preventcl from rocking and ready for service. The process of 
lowering is obvious; a man enters the boat, unfastens the winding rope, 
which he allows to run fast or slow as he pleases. The weight of the boat 
unwinds the suspending ropes, which finally slip frem the holes in the wind- 
lass and remain hanging from the davits. The thimbles of the lashing 
ropes in the mean time slip from the prongs and remain hanging from the 
sides of the boat. In this operation the force of a man is made sufficient to 
control the weight of a boat by means of the friction pulleys above men- 
tioned, the effect of which is analogous to that of a turn or two of a rope 
around a post, as exemplified every day on the arrival of a steamer, when 
one man by this process checks the motion of a boat of a thousand tons. 
The friction pulley consists of a block with three sheaves placed one above 
the other, their ceriters in a straight line, their sides on the same plane and 
their axles parallel. The rope is made to wind its way from the right of 
one sheave to the left of the next, and once on, has the shape of a cross sec- 
tion of a hollow rail. The nearer the sheaves are to each other the sharper 
the turnings of the rope, and the stronger the resulting friction. Another 
precaution which it is always prudent to take beforehand, is that of fasten- 
ing the helm on the proper side for turning the head of the boat away from 
the ship. But this must be done carefully, for if it be turned too much on 
that side and the boat lowered from a steamer at full speed, mishaps might 
occur. This invention has been thoroughly tried on board several vessels of 
the English Navy. It is found to answer beyond expectation, and is now 
adopted by the Admiralty. 


STEAM ON COMMON ROADS. 


~~ 


Considerable attention has been excited in New York during the past year 
by the occasional appearance on Broadway of a street locomotive, built by 
Mr. Richard Dudgeon. Its speed was about equal with the average speed 
of horses in stages, and it was apparently controlled with as much ease, and 
With more certainty. The popular notions that horses would be alarmed by 
such vehicles, and that they cannot ascend hills on account of their wheels 
slipping, were refuted by the performance of this engine, which met with no 


40 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ease of difficulty of this nature, although it run for a considerable part of 
several days in crowded streets. 

Mr. Joseph Battin, of Newark, N. J., has also recently built a steam car- 
riage on a different plan, which he has run successfully on several short trips. 
The performance is such as to corroborate the view that steam may be used 
with advantage, even on a small scale. 

It is known to most well informed persons that there were about seventy 
steam carriages built in England between 1827 and 1840, many of which 
were reported to have attained speeds of twenty to thirty miles per hour with 
full loads, and to have worked more economically than horses, and to have 
been free from the objections attributed to them by popular rumor, such as 
that they would make smoke, throw out sparks and dust, frighten horses, 
slip their wheels, and be unable to steer well and stop quickly. 

In reply to all reports of these favorable performances, from 1831 down to 
this day, the question has been asked : “‘ How happens it, if these reports be 
true, that capitalists or practical engineers have not brought the invention 
into common use?” It seems on all hands to have been inferred, from the 
fact it has not come into use, that the invention is incapable of competing 
with horse-power, in point of economy, or that it is dangerous or otherwise 
objectionable. 

To this question, Mr. John Fazey, author of a well known Treatise on 
the Steam Engine, in his testimony before a committee of the House of 
Commons on steam carriages, replied that the protection by patents was in- 
sufficient to induce business men to incur the expenses that attend the intro- 
duction of a new invention. The first machines always cost more, and gen- 
erally are far less efficient than those built after there has been time to effect 
the details and proportions, and methodize and cheapen the construction ; 
and unless it is tolerably sure that the invention will not be open to compe- 
tition, there is no inducement to incur the certainty of extraordinary expense 
in the outset, even if there were no apprehension whatever that the enterprise 
might fail from defects of the invention. There were at that time and soon 
after, six different plans, nearly equal in merit, which had no patentable fea- 
tures but their boilers ; and the proprietors of these plans were in competition, 
and some of them were hostile to each other, and disputed in public print, 
and even opposed each other in applications to Parliament ; these proceed- 
ines indicated that there would be such competition as would prevent capi- 
talists from obtaining high profits, however useful the invention might prove 
to be; and it was observed that after the coming up of these competing plans, 
there was little capital subscribed, although immediately after the first suc- 
cessfil demonstration by Gurney, abundance of capital was subscribed, on 
condition that Parliament should sanction the enterprise, by granting char- 
ters and repealing Prohibitory Toll Acts. 

In 1831 Gurney and his supporters petitioned for the abatement of tolls, 
which were from two to thirteen times higher on steamers than on horse 
coaches of equal capacity. ‘The Commons appointed a select committee to 
examine into the merits of the invention or the obstacles in its way; which 
committee, after receiving the testimony of several eminent engineers, besides 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 4] 


that of the parties interested, reported that the invention was able to work 
cheaper than horses; that it was speedier, safer, more agreeable, and less in- 
jurious to roads than horses; and that it was subject to Prohibitory Tolls; 
and the committee reported a Bill to make the tolls equal to those on horse 
carriages, which Bill passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. 

In 1834 Gurney again petitioned; another investigation took place, but 
he case was laid over until 1835, when another committee resumed the sub- 
ject, and a Bill was passed to relieve steam carriages from Prohibitory Tolls, 
and to extend Gurney’s patent, which had nearly expired. This Bill the 
Lords rejected, in consequence of which the capitalists withdrew, and the 
invention was left to the zeal of enthusiasts, who worked with little or no 
hope of money, and who were easily crushed by the strong opposition of ¢s- 
tablished interests. 

It is remarked in the history of this invention, that it might have attained 
the sanction of Parliament, and attained complete success, had there been a 
company committed to no particular invention, yet controlling them all, 
and adopting and combining what was best in all. The same remark, we 
think, is now applicable to the invention as it stands in this country. And 
we may add that the view of Fazey applics with greater force than it did 
when the locomotive was undeveloped, and the competing steam carriage 
plans were in some measure protected by patents. Capitalists will keep 
aloof from it unless it is presented in such a condition that they may expect 
a monopoly of the plans which they pay for perfecting and introducing. 
They will not pay the extraordinary expenses of new machinery, and of 
repeated partial failures, if, when they have shown that the general project is 
economical, those who wish to use them can get their models copied at mere 
workmen’s prices, or run them down by the force of superior capital. 

Inventors usually are actuated by love of invention, and do not compre- 
hend the motives of money-making men. They are also partial to their own 
devices; and, though not more selfish than other men, they are often at 
variance with each other, and weaken themselves until they fall an easy 
prey to the lowest class of capitalists. It appears that this invention has 
heretofere failed from the division of those whose plans, if combined, would 
have insured its success ; it is to be hoped their error will save the invention 
from a like fate at this time, when it seems to be exciting renewed attention, 
both here and in England. 


FEEDING OF STEAM BOILERS BY METER. 


The owners of steam machinery are well aware that it is by no means an 
uncommon occurrence for the shortcomings of one portion of their arrange- 
ments to be unwittingly attributed to another and innocent department. In 
this way, the engine and its boiler are often mixed up, as to their respective 
merits and defects, very much to the confusion of their qualities, the perpet- 
uation of uneconomical working, and the betrayal of the confidence of the 
employer. 

Every steam boiler and every engine ought to stand for itself; and each 
must support its own individual credit. What goes on in the steam cylinder 


4* 


42 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


is, of course, already clearly told by the indicator, and many are the valvular 
defects and derangements which the mechanical engineer has proved and 
remedied by the help of this little instrument. Now there is no reason why 
the “indicator”’ system should not find equally as good an application with 
reference to the real source of the poweér—the steam boiler. At present we 
put coals into the furnace, and pour water into the boiling chamber for con- 
version into steam, whilst we have no satisfactory return to show whether 
each pound of fuel does or does not produce the amount of mechanical 
effect which is exigible from it. But such an explanatory statement can 
now be obtained in a very simple and accurate manner, by mounting guard 
upon the water feed-pipe of the boiler with a good water meter. Each 
boiler must, of course, have its own special meter, so that, however many 
boilers there may be working in concert, the truth is always told as to the 
performances of every individual one. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM BOILERS. 


George Jackson, of England, has patented “a new or improved steam 
boiler, to be heated by the waste heat of puddling or mill furnaces.”? ‘The 
boiler is of cylindrical form, and is terminated by hemispherical or nearly 
hemispherical ends. The boiler is set in its casing of brickwork in a verti- 
eal position, and the hot air and the fire are made to circulate about and 
through the said boiler in the following manner :—“ The fire is conducted 
from a couple of puddling or mill furnaces through two flues, and delivered 
near the bottom of the boiler. After being made to circulate about the 
vertical sides of the cylindrical boiler, the said fire enters a horizontal flue 
passing through the boiler at a point a little higher than its middle. The 
fire enters the horizontal flue at both ends, and passes up a vertical flue or 
chimney, which is situated in the axis of the boiler, and opens into the hori- 
zontal flue. A damper is situated at each end of the horizontal flue, and 
by the dampers the draught may be regulated. That part of the vertical 
chimney which is within the boiler is surrounded with an air space, that is 
to say, there is an annular layer of air between the chimney and the boiler, 
so that the chimney is isolated, so far as its temperature is concerned, from 
the upper part of the boiler. The isolating air space descends to a point 
below the water level of the boiler, and any danger which would otherwise 
attend the over-heating of the chimney is avoided.” 

Wright’s Improvements in Manufacturing Boilers. — In the ordinary manu- 
facture of cylindrical boilers, the plates are so arranged that the riveted joints 
run in lines parallel to the axis of the boiler, and in planes perpendicular 
to the axis; or, in other words, the joints run in the direction of the length 
of the boiler, and at right angles to it. The joints running parallel to the 
axis of the boiler, or the longitudinal joints, it is well known, are subjected 
to a greater strain than those crossing them at right angles and running 
round in planes perpendicular to the axis, and consequently the longitudinal 
jointing is the weakest, and the part of the boiler first to give way under 
great pressure. 

In order to remove this defect, Mr. Ii. T. Wright, of Wolverhampton, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 43 


England, has patented an invention which consists in so arranging the riv- 
eted joints of boilers, and other articles of similar manufacture, that they 
shall not run parallel to the axis, but in a line oblique thereto, the lines of 
plates being made to run round the axis of the boiler in a helical or cork- 
screw direction, and the joints either at right angles to one another, or vary- 
ing from a right angle, so as to be oblique to the direction of the greatest 
strain. ‘By thus placing the lines of riveted jointing oblique to the direc- 
tion of greatest strain,” says Mr. Wright, “any given amount of such 
greatest or lateral strain is resisted by a greater length of jointing, and 
consequently greater number of rivets, than when such line of jointing is 
situated parallel to the axis of the boiler; whilst the whole length of joint- 
ing and number of rivets in the boiler is not increased, or is increased only 
to an inconsiderable extent.” 

Mud Pockets for Steam Boilers. — J. Stephen, of Glasgow, has taken out a 
patent for the following method of constructing boilers, to collect and remove 
the mud deposited from impure water. The boiler is formed with a narrow 
water space division, or pocket, extending from the underside of the boiler 
at the furnace down to and through the line of furnace bars. The water 
space opens at its upper wide end into the bottom of the boiler, which has 
a row of openings in its shell at that part to form the communication. The 
boiler itself is set slightly out of the horizontal line, the furnace end being 
somewhat lower than the reverse end. Hence the mud and deposit of the 
water is continually directed towards the front or furnace end where it falls 
from the boiler into the narrow bottom of the water space or pocket. The 
part where the deposit accumulates is carried down to a short distance below 
the furnace bars, so that the heat of the fuel cannot act injuriously upon the 
metal of the division space, and burn it where there is no water to protect it. 
The mud or sediment which accumulates in the bottom of the water space 
can be removed by an instrument put in either from the interior of the 
boiler, or through a plug way in the front end of the water space. Loose 
deposit can, of course, be blown out through the plug way by the steam 
pressure of the boiler. The water space, being passed down into the furnace 
in the centre thereof, forms the means of dividing the furnace into two equal 
parts, so that the sections can thus be fired alternately. 


ERICSSON’S HOT AIR ENGINE. 


Ericsson’s caloric motor or hot air engine, which had been nearly forgot- 
ten by the public, and was supposed to have been laid aside as ingenious 
but impracticable, is again brought to notice and now seems to be decidedly 
successful. Though the principle on which Ericsson’s caloric engine was 
originally built is wholly preserved, the arrangement and mechanism are 
entirely different —the whole being reduced to a degree of simplicity never 
before attained in any engine. 

Several cf these engines haye been exhibited in New York during the 
past summer. One, located in an office in William-street, occupies less 
than a cubic foot of space, and is heated solely by gas. The power devel- 
loped by it, is greater than that of an able-bodied man. It is employed in 


44 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pumping, and raises three hogsheads per hour to an elevation of five feet. 
This pattern is called a “domestic engine,” being adapted to perform a 
great variety of work ordinarily done by hand, and with a surprising de- 
gree of economy. 

Another pattern is designed for ships’ use. In this capacity, it promises 
to accomplish important results ; for our fine large packets and sailing ships, 
being unable to carry steam engines, have wholly to rely on manual labor 
in ridding the ship of water, in case of leak or other exigency. The caloric 
engine may be placed in the corner of the cook’s galley, almost unobserved, 
and may be put in operation in fifteen or twenty minutes, saving the labor 
of an entire crew. There being no possibility of explosion, or rather dis- 
aster, the cook is amply qualified to officiate as engineer, if desired. 

In addition to the above, a steam yacht has been running in New York 
harbor during the past summer, propelled solely by caloric. This boat is 
fifty feet in length, with an eight feet paddle wheel, which works about 
thirty turns per minute, giving a speed equal to eight or nine knots an 
hour. The engine is controlled by any one who happens to belong to the 
party on board. The fuel is either coal or wood. Small oak wood has 
generally been used, sawed into eight-inch lengths, and incredible as it may 
seem, only one cord was consumed during the last six weeks, though the 
boat was in motion more or less every day! Even after the fires are wholly 
extinguished, sufficient heat is retained in the metal of the engine (if it has 
been thoroughly warmed, and is in good working order) to propel the boat 
at least two miles. The space occupied by the engine of this boat is not 
larger than the boiler which the same boat would require if propelled by 
steam. 

Mr. Ericsson deserves great credit for the patience with which, under 
great discouragements, he has elaborated and perfected his invention, and 
we hope he may now reap an abundant reward. 


NEW SAFETY ESCAPE-PIPE FOR STEAM BOILERS. 


At a recent meeting of the society of Arts, London, Mr. John Rams- 
bottom read a paper describing a new and improved mode of applying the 
fusible plug to steam boilers, so as to secure the greater certainty of its ac- 
tion and to remove one of the principal causes cf boiler explosions, namely, 
that arising from shortness of water. It occurred to the author, that if the 
plug or plugs were inserted in a small flue or pipe, through which a current 
of the hottest gases taken immediately from near the fire was made to pass 
such flue or pipe, being at the same time at a higher level, than the boiler 
surface over the fire, that the fusible plugs would be melted out with greater 
certainty, whilst at the same time the boilers not being overheated would be 
uninjured. ‘The modes in which the invention could be applicd to various 
descriptions of boilers was shown by drawings, and the manner in which the 
invention acted was described. An elbow pipe four inches diameter was 
fitted to the bottom of the boiler, or tothe top internal flue of a boiler and 
was made the means of carrying the heated gases from the furnace to the 
side or exit flue. The upper part of the elbow pipe being perforated with 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 45 


conical holes five-eighths of an inch diameter, and filled with fusible metal 
plugs, simply driven in. By this arrangement should the water fall below the 
upper surface of the pipe, the fusible plugs being constantly exposed to the 
current of the heated gases, passing through it immediately melt, and thus 
preserve the boiler from injury. The pipe could be made of wrought or 
cast-iron, brass, or copper, but the author preferred them, of wrought iron 
or malleable cast iron. Before venturing to bring the plan before the public, 
he made several experiments upon one of his own boilers. At the time the 
experiments took place, the pressure of the steam averaged from forty to 
forty-five pounds the square inch, the water then being at its proper working 
height, that is to say, three or four inches above the covering in, or top of 
the side flues. To facilitate the experiment, the water was blown off until 
its level was not more than one fourth of an inch above the top of the pipe, 
Instructions were then given to the stoker, to fire up, and increase the 
steam pressure, with a view to evaporate the water as quick as possible, 
and reduce it below the proper level. Through a spy hole made in the 
brickwork the action of the fire could be distinctly observed playing upon 
the plugs until they melted out. It was subsequently found that three of 
the plugs had given way, thus relieving the boiler from steam pressure, 
and gradually putting out the fire, while a sufficient quantity of water was 
reserved to enable the stroker to recommence firing, with but little delay of 
the replacing of the plugs. 


ENGINES OF THE BROOKLYN WATERWORKS. 


The largest pumping engines in the United States, and, with few excep- 
tions, in the world, are those in course of construction for the Brooklyn 
Water Works by Messrs. Woodruff and Beach of Hartford, Conn. Each 
of the two engines will lift 10,000,000 gallons to an average height of 165 
feet per day of sixteen hours, through a tube thirty six inches in diameter 
and about 3,300 feet long. 

The conduit of the Brooklyn Water Department is situated some 130 
feet below the great distributing reservoir, and powerful engines are ne- 
cessarily required to raise the water. The two machines now in course of 
construction are double-acting fly-wheel engines of ten feet stroke and eighty 
inch bore, each working two pumps of fifty-four inch bore and thirty six inch 
effective stroke, by spiral cams. 

This is a modification of the Hartford pumping engine, built by Messrs. 
Woodruff and Beach, in which the fly-wheel shafts gear, with two pump- 
shafts, each driving two pumps and reducing their speed to one third that 
of the fly-wheel shaft. The four pumps are each fitted with double pistons, 
worked by the cams, alternately toward and from each other, with a lap on 
the upper and lower centres, so that the water is lifted without changing its 
direction, as in other double-acting pumps. In the Brooklyn engines, only 
one pair of pumps will be used for each, the piston of one working its 
charge through the other, the effective stroke of each being thirty six inches 
with forty-two inch travel, and the cams being connected directly to the fly- 
wheel shaft. Double-beat valves are also to be used 


46. ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


The duty established as a test of these engines is 600,000 pounds of water 
raised one foot, with one pound of coal; the water being measured by actual 
discharge into the reservoir. The trials of the Hartford engine, gave, in 
one case, 620,000, and in another, 690,000 pounds duty. " 

The engines used at Cambridge, Mass., for working the pumps of the 
water-works, have the following peculiarities: Two trunk engines work the 
pumps by direct action, each combining the use of high and low pressure 
steam. The high pressure cylinder is placed within the other, and, instead 
of allowing the exhausted steam to escape, it is carred back through pas- 
sages in the covering of the outer cylinder; and made to enter this outer or 
low-pressure cylinder at the same end as it enters the first; here it acts, 
expansively, and is finally conveyed through the side supports of the en- 
gine into the condenser. The piston of the outer cylinder is a ring, and its 
power is transmitted by three piston-rods instead of one, which are bolted 
to the same cross-head, or yoke of iron, as the single piston-rod of the inner 
cylinder ; thus the powers of the two cylinders are combined to effect the 
same object at the same moment. The inner cylinder is kept warm by the 
steam in the outer one, and this again by a small quantity of steam which is 
admitted for that purpose into its hollow cover or jacket. The diameter of 
the small cylinder is twelve inches, and that of the large twenty-four inches, 
its piston being a ring five inches wide. The plunger of each pump dis- 
places about sixteen and a half gallons of water each stroke. 


COAL-BURNING LOCOMOTIVES. 


Numerous abortive attempts have been made during the last ten years, 
for substituting coal for wood as fuel for locomotives. When it is known 
that all over Europe coke is used as successfully as wood is here, it is not 
easy to understand why there should be any difficulty in using anthracite, 
but practice has taught that there are many. ‘There are now three different 
plans before the public, and they are all approved by competent engineers. 
A locomotive on the Baker plan has been constructed for the Providence 
and Fall River Railway Company. The novelty consists in making the 
flames follow a curved flue, instead of going straight to the chimney. The 
smoke is thus more thoroughly mixed with air, and consequently better 
burned. There is also an arrangement to supply the furnace with warm 
air. It is alleged that the result will be a saving of fifty per cent. 

Another locomotive is in use upon the Hudson River rail-road, the 
invention of A. F. Smith, Superintendent of that road. This machine 
weighs 59,000 pounds, the driving-wheels are five feet in diamater, the 
stroke is twenty-two inches, the boiler is forty-nine inches in diameter and 
eleven and a half feet long. The barrel proper, extending from the flame- 
sheet to the smoke-arch, is seven and a half feet long and forty inches in di- 
ameter. There are 179 brass tubes, of two inches outside diameter and 
seven and a half feet long. The fire box measures sixty by thirty-two 
inches, with a combustion chamber extending four feet into the barrel of 
the boiler. This chamber is divided by a water leg, extending from the 


=>) 


front of the fire-box to within twenty inches of the tube sheet. Around the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47 


combustion chamber there are apertures which are opened or closed at 
pleasure, and by which air can be let in to burn the gases not yet consumed. 
The consumption of coal on the first trip, between New York and Pough- 
keepsie, was 4,200 pounds instead of the usual four cords of wood ; that is to 
say, thirteen dollars and twenty-five cents instead of twenty-eight dollars. 
Dimpfel’s tubular boiler is intended for any kind of fuel, and, it is alleged, 
answers perfectly for coal-burning locomotives. A large machine of this 
style wa3 built by the Taunton Locomotive Manufacturing Company, and is 
now drawing express trains over the Erie Railroad, using anthracite alone. 
The fire-box and the barrel form one chamber, through the whole length of 
which the smoke passes, escaping into the smoke-box through an opening in 
the lowest part of the barrel near the smoke-box. The tubes extend out of 
the barrel over the fire; there they bend upward, and the top of the furnace 
becomes a tube sheet. With this arrangement the water is inside the tubes 
and the fire outside between them, in the manner adopted for the boilers of 
the Collins steamships. The inventor claims to have by this arrangement 
entirely done away with the burning of the end of the tubes and of the top 
of the fire-box, which is the ordinary consequence of a coal fire in a locomo- 
tive built on the usual plan. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN LOCOMOTIVES AND RAILROAD CARS. 


Prestage’s Improved Locomotive. — This invention is attracting considerable 
attention in England, and is similar to the one used on the steamer Arctic at 
the time of her loss. It aims at fulfilling the conditions suggested by the 
Franklin Institute as being necessary for the economical working of super- 
heated steam, — the committee reporting that there would be great economy 
in using superheated steam or stame, if it could be brought into operation 
where the temperature of colder bodies would not interfere to abstract the 
heat before it could be profitably employed. ‘The cylinders and working 
parts of the machine are placed above the boiler, instead of underneath, as is 
usual, and the boiler is in consequence lowered, thus giving more stability to 
the engine and bringing its centre of gravity more directly to the line of at- 
traction. The removal of mechanism from under the boiler leaves a space 
available for the construction of a tank, which surrounds it in such amanner 
as to maintain against the boiler a sheet of feed water, which is there heated 
by the radiating heat preparatory to its being fed in. The cylinders are en- 
circled by jackets, and are placed in the smoke-box. The steam in its pas- 
sage from the boiler to the cylinders, is Ied into these jackets, where it is 
superheated. It is expected that the consumption of the fuel will be dimin- 
ished one half by the use of this invention. This expectation is by no means 
unreasonable, when we remember that a locomotive uses about three times 
more fuel per horse power than the most expensive stationary engine. 
Besides, the use of stame in lieu of steam does not require so large a boiler, 
and the room thus gained allows an increase of the furnace sufficient for the 
use of coal, which is a cheaper combustible than wood or coke. 

New Form of Locomotive.— A new form of railroad locomotive has re- 


48 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


cently been constructed in England. The steam cylinders are placed mid- 
way between two pairs of driving wheels, which are so disposed as to bear 
nearly the whole weight of the engine. A third pair of wheels are added, as 
leading or travelling wheels, to complete the six required for the safety of the 
engine. The cylinders are fitted and worked the usual way, but, instead 
of having the piston passing out at one end of the cylinder only, it is carried 
through both ends of it, which are filled with stuffing boxes. This plan 
saves the piston from undue friction. The cylinders are fitted and furnished 
with connecting rods at the ends of the pistons, one set of connecting rods 
communicating with one of the cranks on the leading driving wheel axlg, 
and others with the cranks of the rear driving wheel axle. By this arrange- 
ment the cylinders and pistons act in opposite directions, and the tendency 
to oscillation is avoided. : 

Automatic Steam W histle. — This is the invention of Mr. James Harrison, 
Jr., and is a mechanical attachment to the engine, worked from the forward 
truck axle, upon the principle that the axle makes a certain number of re- 
yolutions in working over the same distance, without any regard to the 
speed. The motion is carried up to and along the top of the boiler to a cast 
iron hollow cylinder, eight or ten inches in diameter, which is placed verti- 
cally upon the boiler at the point where the whistle is to be fixed. On this 
cylinder a screw is cut, intended to be long enough for adaptation to the route 
of the locomotive out and back. Between the threads of this screw a lever 
slowly traverses, and at the points where the whistle is to be blown, pins are 
placed, over which the lever rides and raises a corresponding one, acting 
upon the valve of the whistle on the top of the cylinder. 

Improvement in Journal Boxes. — We notice the following improvement in 
journal box for railroad car axles. It consists in making an inner box or 
cell, with projecting lips, which embrace the lower half of the journal, to fit 
and slide in recesses in the sides of a brass or cap box, so that when the 
journal is inserted, and the inner box or cell is forced up against the journal 
by springs, the whole circumference of the journal shall be embraced, to 
prevent the entrance of dirt and waste of oil. 

Improvement in the Manufacture of Car Wheels. — An improved method of 
manufacturing wheels and axles is now being largely carried on in England, 
The wheel is composed of triangular sections, each triangle being formed of 
a rolled iron bar, bent into the required shape by a most ingenious opera- 
tion, the base of the triangle being slightly curved, so as to form a perimeter 
of the wheel; the ends are either inserted in a wrought iron nave; and, by 
the insertion of a piece of iron at the angle of each triangular section where 
it joins the next section, these being welded to each section, the wheels 
become one piece of wrought iron, to which the tires are mechanically fixed. 
Such a wrought iron wheel tends greatly to preserve the axle, as every con- 
cussion of the tire against the rails, instead of being directly communicated 
to the axle, is distributed over a series of vibrations in the wrought-iron 
wheels, and thus reaches the axle with greatly-diminished force ; and by 
making the axle considerably stronger than the ordinary strain upon it re- 
quires, the danger of fracture is reduced to a minimum. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 49 


New Method of Lubricating Axles.— A novel method of lubricating bearings 
is also noticed in the French mechanical journals. The bearing is described 
as being made rather wider than usual, and a small disk is fitted on the 
shaft, which dips into a reservoir of oil in the base of the hanging carriage or 
plummer block, and by its revolution raises the oil and distributes it over the 
bearing. A tight-fitting cap may be made to cover in the whole bearing, and 
prevent, particularly in public conveyances, the access of dust. Bearings 
thus lubricated, it is averred, will run for more than a twelvemonth with one 
supply of oil, 


re BEAUFUME’S GAS-FLAME FURNACE. 


The points of novelty in this new French invention are as follows : 
Instead of burning the fuel directly below the boiler, M. Beaufumé first 
ransforms it into gas in a separate apparatus; and then conveys this gas to 

the boiler, where its complete combustion causes the generation of the steam. 
This separate apparatus which M. Beaufumé terms a gasifier, consists of a 
furnace constructed very like that of a locomotive, with a water space sub- 
stituted for the tube-plate. Coal is heaped upon the fire-bars to a consider- 
able height, say twenty to twenty-eight inches, according to the quality of 
the coal. The air necessary for the gasification is supplied in suitable quan- 
tities below the fire bars by means of a blowing fan. The oxygen of the air 
supplied causes very active combustion amongst the lower layers of coal in 
contact with the fire bars converting the coal into carbonic acid gas; and 
this gas, in passing through and amongst the upper layers which ought 
always to remain black, becomes converted into carbonic oxide, and accu- 
mulates in the upper part of the furnace, mixed with nitrogen and doubtless 
hydrogen also. These gases, the temperature of which is but slightly ele- 
vated, are conducted to the boiler through a wrought iron pipe, and enter the 
boiler furnace, after having been thoroughly mixed in a chamber termed the 
burner, with a suitable proportion of air supplied by the blowing-fan. After 
having been once ignited in the boiler furnace, the gases continue to burn as 
fast as they are supplied. The flames produced act on the heating surface 
of the boiler; and the gases remaining after combustion pass through the 
flues and escape into the atmosphere under the pressure due to the blowing- 
fan, no chimney being required. 

The gasifier, in consequence of the water-space with which it is surrounded, 
is itself a small boiler, the water in it absorbing the heat developed in the 
gasifying process, and utilizing it by forming a considerable quantity of 
steam, which is added to that of the large boiler. The furnace of the gasifier 
is supplied with fuel through a passage in the top of the apparatus, this pas- 
sage crossing the steam space and opening into the furnace, whilst it is fitted 
with doors or valves at both extremities, so that the fuel can be introduced 
into the furnace without opening a communication with the atmosphere. 

A few simple and inexpensive alterations require to be made in the brick- 
work setting of ordinary boilers, in order to adapt them to being heated by gas. 
The fire bars being removed, a brickwork platform is constructed in their 
place, and on this platform a number of brickwork passages are formed, 

a 


50 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


with openings arranged to allow a portion of the ignited gases to come 
directly into contact with the boiler surface. ‘These passages are quite indis- 
pensable, and form what may be called a heat-regulator. They heat the 
gases which, arriving in too cold a state, would not be completely burnt 
did they not come in contact with highly-heated surfaces before being 
ignited. 

The benefits which M. Beaufumé proposes to obtain by means of the sys- 
tem, the principal feature of which we have described, are a very active and 
complete combustion, without an excessive supply of air, and always regular, 
2 complete consumption of smoke, and, finally, a very considerable saving 
of fuel. 

The labor of the firemen attending to the apparatus consists in raising the 
fuel to a platform, on a level with the charging passage, and in introducing 
it through this passage, after ascertaining the height of the fuel inside by 
means of arod. From time to time he must poke up the black coals lying 
above the incandescent mass, to prevent their arching over, so as to form a 
hollow ; he must examine how the gases burn in the boiler furnace, regulate 
the speed of the blowing-fan, and adjust the registers upon the various air 
and gas pipes; he must attend to the water supply of the large boiler, and 
also to that of the gasifier boiler, if the water in the two does not communi- 
cate; and, finally, he must clean the fire bars of the gasifier more or less 
frequenty during the day, according to the quality of the fuel employed, 
English coal requiring this operation twice in the day — at mid-day and in 
the evening. 

The Beaufumé apparatus requires more attention, and gives, perhaps, a 
little more trouble than an ordinary boiler; still an ordinary fireman is quite 
capable of attending to it. 

When the boiler and gasifier are cold; that is, when the fire has been ex- 
tinguished for more than twelve hours, —it requires considerably more time 
to getup the steam than with the ordinary furnace ; for it is at first necessary 
to work the furnace of the gasifier ike an ordinary furnace to get up steam 
of the pressure of two atmospheres, and this requires about twenty-five 
minutes. Before that it is not possible to set the blowing-fan in motion, nor 
to produce gas capable of being burnt under the large boiler. This is one 
of the inconveniences, attending the Beaufumé apparatus; but, at the same 
time, when the fire in the gasifier can be kept in during the intervals between 
working hours, as M. Beaufumé proposes, this inconvenience does not exist 
with a boiler working every day, and in which steam is kept up during the 
night, so that the donkey-engine can be started the first thing on the follow- 
ing morning; so that it is only on a Monday morning that fifteen or twenty 
minutes more is required to get up steam. 

The Beaufumé apparatus has also another inconvenience, which is felt 
every time the fuel is stirred. This operation necessitates the opening of 
small apertures for the introduction of the poker, permitting large quantities 
of carbonic oxide to escane, the presence of which in the boiler-house is in- 
jurious to the fireman, unless the atmosphere is renewed with sufficient 
rapidity. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 51 


Finally, that nothing may be omitted, we must mention eertain trifling 
accidents which are apt to occur with the Beaufumé apparatus. These are 
miniature explosions which take place on igniting the gases in the boiler 
furnace, when the precaution is not taken of shutting off the supply of air 
until the moment when the light is applied, and when in consequence the 
furnace and flues are filled with carbonic oxide, mixed with air. There is, 
however, not the slightest danger attending these explosions, for the flames 
do not reach far on account of the very slightly-elevated temperature of the 
gases. 

A commission of the French government, appointed to examine and re- 
port on the new apparatus during the past ycar, presented the following 
summary : 

M. Beaufumé’s heating apparatus works with perfect regularity ; is quite 
free from smoke, and effects a great saving. The saving derived from it as 
compared with the ordinary system of heating, reached as much as thirty- 
eight per cent. in our experiments, and there is no donbt that the very great 
saving of one third may be reckoned upon with certainty. 

There are no difficulties in working the apparatus; it requires but a little 
extra care and attention, but not so much as to constitute a matter of seri- 
ous consideration. 

It has the advantage, above all, of being able to use economically fuel ofa 
kind which can only be burnt in ordinary furnaces with great difficulty, such 
as small coal. 

It has the inconvenience of throwing a quantity of carbonic oxide into the 
boiler house, and, although this is not of much importance on land, it might 
be serious on board ship. ‘This defect is less, the less frequently the fuel is 
stirred up, and, with some coals, it scarcely exists, as they do not require 
stirring up. We must also remark, that, although M. Beaufumé’s apparatus 
has reached a practicable state, it is still too recent an invention to be inca- 
pable of improvement, and M. Beaufumé hopes, and we believe it quite pos- 
sible, to remove the defect in question altogether. 


STEAM AND FIRE REGULATORS. 


Steam and fire regulators much resemble a safety valve. They consist 
of a long lever, to which a weight is attached. This lever is acted upon near 
its falerum by a large valve placed under it, which may rise and fall a small 
distance without letting steam out, as is the case for a piston in a cylinder. 
The end of the lever is united by a slender rod to the crank of a damper, or 
of a valve in the chimney. When the pressure of steam increases in the 
boiler, the valve rises, the lever does the same, and closes the damper; when 
the pressure decreases, the valve comes down and opens the damper. The 
weight on the lever is movable, and may be adjusted for any degree of pres- 
sure. 

At the recent exhibition of the American Institute, in New York, an un- 
usual number of these contrivances were exhibited, the principal of which we 
shall briefly describe. 


52 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


In an old invention of Timothy Clark, the valve is an elastic vessel, in. 
closed ina cylindrical casing, on which is the fulcrum of the lever. Over 
the elastic vessel is a cylindrical plate, with a projecting pin on top, that rests 
against the lever one inch from the fulcrum. The lever is four feet long. 
Thus, the motion of the end of the lever is forty-eight timcs that of the 
valve. The elastic vessel is composed of a series of annular plates, soldered 
to each other at their inner and outer edges; they are made of brass, thin 
enough to be elastic. This vessel is soldered on the end of a steam-pipe, 
and no packing of joints is required. If the solder used is not too soft, this 
valve may last for years without any attention. 

In a regulator, exhibited by W.S. Gale, the valve is a circular disc of 
India-rubber, protected by a similar disc of brass, which has been cut in 
numerous strips, radiating from the centre, an@ is thus made yielding. 
Such a valve cannot play much, and this deficiency is corrected by using 
two levers, the one above the other; the total increase of motion being 
ninety. 

The valve of Patrick Clark, exhibited by the Patent Steam and Fire 
Regulator Company, is also a disc of India-rubber, but not a flat one; it has 
the shape of a half sphere, with flanges around. A cylindrical envelop is 
screwed over the rubber against a plate, but the lower portion of this casing 
against which the rubber rests, has, like it, a spherical shape. A piston, 
made convex underneath, is placed in the casing upon the India-rubber disc; 
this yielding to the weight, the centre portion turns inside, and becomes con- 
cave, when the piston moves up and down by steam pressure. The bent in 
the India-rubber has a kind of wave motion. By this arrangement a long 
stroke is obtained. The pin between the lever and the piston is a separate 
piece ; it rests on a deep recess in a projection cast on the piston. This pro- 
jection slides in a box as a guide to insure the straight motion of the piston. 
The effect of the lever is to increase the motion only fifteen times. This is 
claimed as a great advantage by the exhibitor, for the reason that the bear- 
ings of the valve in the smoke-pipe are rusty, and that to overcome their 
friction the force corresponding to a short leverage is necessary. 

White’s Valve is an elastic pipe, a foot long and three inches in diameter, 
which is placed horizontally in a semi-circular trough; over it is a long 
square plate, flat at top and convex underneath. The centre of this plate is 
cast as a bearing for a rod, with a knife-edge, which acts against the lever. 
The elastic pipe is made of several layers of hemp fabric, made steam-tight 
with India-rubber. It is closed at each end by means of plugs. The fabric 
and plugs are pressed together in the boxes of pillow blocks placed at each 
end. One of these blocks is fast on the bed-plate, and the steam enters 
through the plug init. 'The other block is free to move to and fro as the 
pipe becomes longer or shorter, by being more or less full of steam. The 
leverage is one to twenty-four. 

The consumption of fuel in a boiler provided with a regulator is ten per 
cent. less than when without it. This instrument is also a protection against 
explosion, as when the pressure of steam rises it dampens the fire and thus 
prevents the pressure from rising higher. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 53 


RUGG’S STEAM BOILER WATER GAUGE. 


This invention, which is highly commended, is externally a glass tube, 
two inches in diameter, and eighteen inches long, which may be placed in 
any part of the building on the same story with the boiler, or on another. 
A vertical iron pipe, half an inch in diameter, is inside of the glass tube, 
placed by the side of the boiler ; this pipe is prolonged and enters the boiler 
below and above the water line. In consequence of this arrangement the 
water takes the same level in the pipe which it has in the boiler, but this pipe 
being small, the water in it gets comparatively cool, so that any one may 
easily leave his hand against the pipe below the waiter level, when the part 
immediately above it is kept burning hot by the steam constantly condensing 
inside. The glass tube is placed around the iron pipe, so that its middle cor- 
responds with the proper level of the water ; it is closed at both ends, and in 
communication with a reservoir of water placed above it. When the com- 
munication with the reservoir is opened, the water rushes into the glass tube 
and rises around the iron pipe, but as soon as it reaches the hot portion of 
the pipe it boils, and the steam thus formed, filling the glass tube, prevents 
by its own pressure the water from rising higher. This steam condenses 
slowly into water against the glass, when the water, rising in proportion, 
comes again in contact with the portion of the pipe which contains steam 
inside, and furnishes a new supply of steam. ‘The water in the glass is thus 
kept on exactly the same level with the water in the pipe and that in the 
boiler. The gauge in the upper story is on a different principle, and is acted 
upon by the one below. The two gauges are made to communicate by a 
pipe, and so much water is let in as will fill the pipe and one half of each 
gauge. Of necessity, when the water gets down in the gauge below, it will 
rise in the one above, and vice versa. The second gauge is graduated ac- 
cordingly the reverse of the first. Several arrangements are now in use to 
ascertain the height of the water in the boiler, but their principle of action 
necessitates that they be on the same level with the boiler, and, in general, 
close to it, where only the engineer can see them. 


FIRE-PLACE SHUTTERS. 


In many of the first-class houses recently erected in England, fire-place 


shutters are provided, which, when partly drawn down, act as powerful - 


blowers; and, when wholly drawn down, so as to touch the hearthstone, 
entirely close up the fire-place, and instantly extinguish the combustion of 
the fuel in the grate, or that of the soot in the chimney, should it accidentally 
take fire. 


ON ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE. 


The London Engineer publishes the following proposed new theory of 
smoke-consumption. This inventor proposes to purify the smoke by water 
in its passage from the furnaces to the chimney; in other words, to wash out 
a large portion of the obnoxious elements of the smoke. His theory is 


5¥ 


a4 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


founded on the observation, that, during wet weather, the rain as it descends 
carries with it the sooty particles of the smoke ejected by chimneys, the 
humidity of the atmosphere causing the particles to cohere, and ultimately to 
fall, partly by their own weight, and partly by their imbibing a portion of 
the water with which the air isimpregnated. The farther the body of smoke 
recedes from the chimney, the more it becomes cleared, or washed, of these 
particles. 

He proposes to effect this cleansing process by means of the same 
agent, namely, water, before the smoke shall ascend the chimney; and the 
modus operandi is as follows: To introduce into the main flue behind the 
boiler, where such an arrangement exists, or at a convenient height in the 
chimney stalk, where no such flue is used, a jet of water, say the spare 
water hot from the engine. This jet to be allowed to fall upon the biades of 
a fan made to revolve rapidly and break the water completely into a fine 
spray or dense mist, filling entirely —for yards in length, or height, as the 
case may require — the chamber through which the smoke must pass as it 
rushes from the furnace. By this process of washing, every particle of soot 
would imbibe moisture sufficient to cause it to descend to the bottom, and 
there be carried off by a small aperture. Others of the component parts of 
the smoke would undergo a chemical change by its passage through the 
broken water, which would hold them in suspension or solution, and carry 
them off by the drain. The objection which would naturally be started, on 
a superficial glance at the proposal, that the introduction of such machinery 
into the flue or chimney would lessen the draught and impede the progress 
of the smoke, might be met by the fact that the water introduced, being hot, 
would not lower the temperature, while the motion of the fan, the blades of 
which should be formed on the principle of the screw propeller, with the 
front of the screw turned in the direction of the furnace, would really accele- 
rate rather than retard the draught. The jet of water coming in contact 
again and again with the blades of the screw would also, by this form of fan, 
be reduced to a spray of the requisite consistency. 

An apparatus for the consumption of smoke, patented by Mr. Woodcock, 
of London, consists in the admission of heated air, to promote combustion, 
at a point where an inverted bridge forces the unconsumed smoke down upon 
the red fire. The smoke is thus brought into contact with the fire, and sup- 
plied with the requisite amount of oxygen, in a heated state, to facilitate its 
combustion. The precise arrangement vories with the length of the boiler 
and other circumstances, sometimes an extra inverted bridge, iron plate af- 
fixed to the top of the flue, being attached. The heated air is introduced 
through a sort of hollow bridge, the front of which is of brick, and the back 
of perforated plate iron. The supply reaches it either under the furnace, in 
the ordinary way, or through a tube on either side of the furnace. 

In some experiments recently made at Manchester, England, with this ap- 
paratus, the steam in the boiler was allowed to subside considerably below 
the ordinary pressure, in order that the fires might be supplied with coal more 
freely, and also to show whether, and in what proportion, an increase of 
steam could be generated. When the steam was reduced to thirty pounds 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 55 


pressure, coals were applied liberally, and in seven mimutes the steam gauge 
indicated thirty-five pounds, the smoke during this period being simply of a 
vaporous transparent character. There were two sixty-horse boilers in use, 
each having two flues and furnaces. The usual plan was to coal the fur- 
naces under each boiler alternately, but in this instance it was done simul- 
taneously, yet the smoke was so trivial that the observers expressed them- 
selves fully satisfied with the result. In the second trial the steam was 
raised to a high pressure more rapidly, the smoke still being suppressed. 
Sawdust and other materials were also thrown upon the furnace, and dense 
smoke produced, but it was so effectually consumed behind the perforated 
bridge that the top of the chimney scarcely indicated the existence of a fire. 


REQUISITES FOR A PERFECT HOT AIR FURNACE. 


The Committee of the Boston Mechanics Association appointed to report 
on the hot air furnaces exhibited at the last Fair, call attention in their Re- 
port to the fact, that all the arrangements for the warming of dwellings, 
lately brought forward, present no important deviation from the stereotyped 
ideas which have continued for many years to guide inventors im this branch 
of construction. Such a result, however, say the Committee, can hardly 
be regarded as surprising, or as discreditable to the inventive genius of those 
who haye occupied themselves with the subject, when it is remembered that 
there are few problems in practical science involving such various and com- 
plex conditions as that of producing a warming apparatus which shall be 
at once efficient, economical, and healthful in its operation. The inherent 
difficulties of this problem will be best illustrated by a brief summary of the 
functions and requisites of a perfect hot air furnace. 

Ist. To secure the efficiency and economy of such a furnace, two things 
are necessary. 

First, The fuel employed should be as completely as possible consumed in 
the body of the apparatus, leaving little or none to escape, in the form of 
combustible gas, or smoke, or to remain behind in the vitrified condition of 
clinker. A combustion thus complete can only be attained through a nice 
adjustment and distribution of the draft, and such form and adaptation of 
the stove chamber and contiguous cavities as will detain the evolved com- 
bustible gas until it shall be entirely burned. 

The fire pot should not be a focus of intense heat, but the heat generated 
in it should be rapidly conducted and radiated from it. In the general 
adaptation, a regular combustion of an adequate quantity of fuel should be 
provided for, and the regulation of the consumption ought to depend on the 
proportion of air admitted to sustain it. It is a very common impression 
that smoke-consuming furnaces and close air stoves are economical in the 
consumption of fuel, as the escaping products have a low temperature. A 
careful examination of the amount of surface will teach any one that this, 
with the advantage arising from retarded draft, sufficiently accounts for the 
fact that under the production of really less heat, more warmth is radiated. 
The close stoves in fact distil the fuel, or allow of only an imperfect com- 


26 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


bustion, by which more than one half the heating effect is lost, and gases 
dangerous to health are accumulated and escape into the apartment. 

Second. The heat evolved in the air chamber and its connections, should 
with the least possible loss be transmitted to the air of the apartment or 
building which it is the design of the furnace to warm. To attain this end 
through the medium of the air chamber, it is necessary to have regard to the 
extent and form, and radiating as well as conducting character of the surface 
of the stove, to the mode of entrance and distribution of the inflowing air, 
and to the prevention, as far as possible, of the escape of heat through the 
walls of the air chamber itself. 

2d. To secure the healthful operation of such a furnace, three principal 
conditions are to be observed. 

First. The gases produced by combustion of the fuel must not be suffered 
to mingle, even in minute proportions, with the air which is to be inhaled. 
Of these the most noxious are the carbonic oxide and sulphurous acid gases. 
The former, when the action of the furnace is perfect, undergoes a further 
combustion, converting it into carbonic acid —a less noxious product; but 
the latter, or sulphurous gas, is entirely incombustible. It is evolved in 
considerable quantity from even the purest varieties of anthracite, is espe- 
cially prone to escape, and is eminently deleterious when breathed habitually, 
even in small amount. To guard against such a result, the stove must 
be constructed with as few junctures as possible; and these must be so 
formed and so connected as to remain air tight, in spite of the warping, and 
the alternate expansion and contraction of the materials due to changing 
temperature. 

Second. The air of the air chamber must be warmed evenly and ade- 
quately, without bringing it into contact with surfaces so highly heated as to 
cause the organic matters contained in it to be burned or otherwise chemi- 
cally altered. In order to fulfil this condition, the arrangement must be such 
as to present to the included passing air a large warming surface heated to 
a moderate temperature. 

Third. The air, in being supplied with an increase of heat in the air 
chamber, must also be supplied with a corresponding increase of moisture. 
This is requisite to maintain its natural degree of humidity, or that appro- 
priate to the temperature, without which it is felt to be unpleasantly dry, 
and when habitually breathed, proves highly detrimental, and even ruinous, 
to the health. 

Such are the leading requisites of a perfect hot air furnace ; and to unite 
them all in one and the same construction, is the difficult, and, as yet, unat- 
tained result, to which the ingenuity and science of our inventive mechanics 
ought to be earnestly directed. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN FURNACES AND HEATERS. 


Reverberatory Furnaces. — An interesting paper on this subject was re- 
cently read by C. W. Siemens, of London, tamed for his speculations on 
the economy of heat, before the Manchester (Eng.) Institution of Mechanical 
Engineers. The subject, as given in a brief report, was a new construction 


a soe Se | ee 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 57 


of furnace, particularly applicable where intense heat is required. The fur- 
nace, as at present constructed, is applied to the melting of metals. A 
number of zigzag passages are formed of fire-brick. There are two fires, 
and the draught to and from each passes alternately along these passages. 
So nearly is the heat absorbed that what ultimately escapes up the chimney 
is only at about 200 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. It had been used for about 
three months in a furnace for iron and steel, and the result showed a saving 
of seventy-nine per cent. as compared with the old furnace, turning out the 
same quantity of metal. Mr. Atkinson, of Sheffield, observed that they 
lad one of those furnaces, and found the consumption to be so small that 
he had the particulars noted during six days, of twenty-four hours per day ; 
the consumption was one ton, ten hundred weight, while the consumption 
for the same period by the old furnace was seven tons; each furnace doing 
the same description of work. The furnace had been applied to the melting 
of caststeel with favorable results. The average of meiting steel was gen- 
erally five tons of coal to one ton of stecl, but with this furnace they melted 
a ton of steel with a ton of coal. Besides this, there was no smoke what- 
ever; and if this furnace became general in Sheffield, of which he had no 
doubt, they would be in a position to vie with any atmosphere in the world. 
In answer to a question as to whether the changing of the currents in the 
regenerator —thus letting in cold air upon them after they had become 
highly heated — did not damage the brick-work? Mr. Siemans explained 
that in case the cold air came first against the part less heated, then against 
the next, taking up one hundred or two hundred degrees at each stage, and 
on this account no cracking from contraction took place. It was also in- 
quired how the iron could be improved by this plan? Mr. Siemans replied 
that the puddling had not been long tried, but he thought it might arise in 
this way: In the ordinary furnace there was a violent draught, but in this 
the draught was small, and the flame did not cut the iron; it gave an intense 
heat, with a comparative quiet atmosphere, thus less oxide of iron was pro- 
duced. ‘The iron must also be more pure, because fewer particles were car- 
ried over to it from the fire. 

Leed’s Hydraulic Heater. —'The main feature of this invention is the cast- 
ing, in one piece, of several parallel pipes, in a straight row, with square 
flanges at each end. ‘The four sides of the common flanges are planed so 
that, to build up a tubular boiler, it is simply necessary to put the several 
sets of parallel pipes one above the other, to insert a piece of oil paper be- 
tween the flanges to perfect the joint, and to press the whole tight by a few 
bolts. The water reservoir, containing the pipes, is closed by bolting against 
the fianges of the pipes a top, a bottom, and two sides. The pipes are hex- 
agonal, this being the best geometrical form to bring the pipes of one row 
under the intervals of the one immediately above, so as to occupy the smallest 
possible space. ‘The bottom and the sides of the water reservoir are corru- 
gated hexagonally, so as to correspond with the intervals between the pipes, 
and produce a larger heating surface. The boiler is inclosed in brick work 
over a fire grate. The flames pass under the bottom, and if this is not suf- 
ficient are made to return along the sides, and so heat the water contained 


58 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


between the pipes. The air in the pipes is warmed; this creates a draft, 
and new air from the outside is drawn in to be poured into the rooms. The 
boiler is connected with a small reservoir, in which is a float acting on a 
lock, making it self-feeding. ach hexagonal pipe is intersected by thin 
plates of iron, which absorb the radiating heat emitted from each side of 
the pipe, and from which it is taken by the air. It is alleged by the paten- 
tee that these thin plates increase the heating power in an almost incredible 
proportion. Thus he found that the longitudinal partitions being in the 
pipes the air came out at 125 degrees, and with the strong draft, the parti- 
tion being withdrawn, the draft was reduced and the temperature was only 
ninety-five degrees. Another good effect results from inclining the boiler 
in the brick work, so that the flames have a slightly downward motion ; it 
is believed that this position facilitates the current of water constantly at 
work inside, to bring the coldest water against the bottom, when that which 
has just been heated rises, by reason of its diminished specific gravity. 


ON THE FRACTURE OF IRON. 


At a recent meeting of the Society of Civil Engineers, London, it was 
stated, that a large anchor, which had been in store for more than a century 
at Woolwich Dock, and was supposed to be made of extremely good iron, 
had been recently tested as an experiment, and had broken instantly with a 
comparatively small strain, the fracture presenting large crystals. In this 
case, the effect was believed to be produced by magnetic influences depend- 
ent on the length of time the iron had been in the same position. 


On the Change of Position among the Particles of Solid Metals, induced by the 
Action of Gentle but Continued Percussion of the Musses they form. 


The following paper by Dr. A. A. Hayes, on the above subject, has been 
recently presented to the American Academy. 

The change by which malleable iron becomes converted into a highly 
crystalline metal, when subjected to pressure attended by a tremulous mo- 
tion, as in the case of railway bars, has been often observed, and the at- 
tendant circumstances noted. My attention has been called to many cases, 
in which the same effects have followed a gentle percussive action on a 
part of a bar, the metal becoming changed at one point only, and hence 
— by chemical dissection the bar being laid open —the fibrous metal could 
be seen united to that changed portion, which had become highly crystalline 
and generally brittle. 

“Tt is well known that the crystalline condition, assumed after the iron 
has been laminated to the extent of rendering it uniformly fibrous, is due 
to motion and change of place between the molecules of the iron, without 
the condition of softening or fluidity. The extreme cases often present us 
with a polarized condition, in which the crystallized iron is as perfect indeed 
as would have resulted from cooling a fluid mass in a state of repose. 

“‘Malleable iron in its fibrous arrangement may be assumed as exhibit- 
ing its particles of broken-down crystals in a state of tension, in which cer- 
tain physical conditions, such as specific gravity and resistance to strain, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 59 


are insured while this state continues. A return to the moral or crystalline 
state requires only vibratory motion, in aid of natural polarizing forces 
always acting, to cause molecules to unite into regular solids and pass to 
a condition of repose, in which the masses become brittle. It is among the 
triumphs of modern science that a successful effort has been made to over- 
come the practical disadvantages arising from this disposition in malleable 
iron to become brittle; and in one of its most important applications — 
that of rail-way axles —this has been effected completely. The discovery 
by IE. M. Connel, an English engineer, that the vibrations among the par- 
ticles of hollow masses do not result in crystalline arrangements, has led 
to the adoption of hollow axles, in which uniformity of thickness of metal 
is insured, while only two thirds of the weight of the metal used for form- 
ing a solid axle is retained, 

“ An interesting case of the formation of large crystals under quite new 
conditions, in an alloy of which zine forms the larger part, has recently 
been observed by me. This alloy, when rapidly cooled, presents a crys- 
talline arrangement much like that of steel. When cast in the form of 
balls, in cold metallic moulds, it shows the effect of chilling remarkably. 
The metal forming the exterior becomes solid aad more dense, while that 
in the interior conforming to it leaves a void of a spherical form, in each 
ball of an inch in diameter as large as a small pea. From well-known facts, 
we should have expected to find this cavity bounded by crystals or crystal- 
line facets, which does not occur; but its inner surface always exhibits the 
flaws and irregularities observed when a metallic mass contracts in cooling 
from a fluid state. These balls were used for reducing saline bodies to 
powder in revolving cylinders containing several hundreds of them, and 
the conditions were such that the balls, impinging on each other at mere 
points as it were, received light blows over every part of their surfaces. 
It would perhaps be inferred that the diameters would have been reduced 
by the metal being forced into the void space as the effect of percussion. 
Instead of this reduction, the balls first become elongated pear-shaped, they 
then exhibited protuberances, and finally an elongated mammillary form, 
in which the diameter was one half longer than that of the original, while 
the whole bulk was increased from one to one and twenty-four hun- 
dredths. 

** A careful examination of the surfaces showed that the uniformity of 
the indentations from impinging was constant, and the conclusion was, that 
the new forms assumed were in no wise affected by any inequality of this 
action. 

“‘On breaking the specimens, the internal structure of each ball was 
nearly the same, exhibiting an effort to form prismatic crystals radiating from 
a centre on one side of the void, while every particle seemed to have changed 
its place and made a new aggregation. Where before the texture was small- 
granular, broad and brilliant-bladed crystals were found, with open inter- 
stices, while in the space originally void the terminal points of many crystals 
made it a geode in appearance. 

“In offering an explanation of this extensive change among the mole- 


60 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 


cules, I think we may consider the polarized state of the outer surface of 
the ball suddenly cooled as continuous in its action. The attraction of the 
interior molecules for this part is seen in the formation of a void space; 
and when the vibrations of impinging points induced a movement, the 
molecules united their dissimilar poles in the ordinary way of building 
up a crystalline aggregate. The natural crystal of this alloy being pris- 
matic, room for the radiations which this form must exhibit would be found 
only by an enlargement of the exterior crust, which owing to the slight de- 
gree of malleability in this case, occurred without fracture. Unequal agere- 
gation of crystals formed would produce the concretionary and mammillary 
masses into which the balls were converted ; and it seems probable that the 
taking on of this form was but one step in passing to one still more simple, 
in which the natural crystalline form of the alloy would have been presented 
in a single crystal.” 


ON THE STRENGTH OF RAILROAD CAR AXLES. 


_ Athorough test of the strength of railroad materials has recently been 
made at Detroit, at which the railroad axles made by different manufac- 
turers were submitted to a trial which was not only fair but searching and 
conclusive. Each axle tested was selected by the manufactures from quan- 
tities on sale, and not made especially for the occasion, as is too often the 
case in such matters, and the process was thorough and conclusive. Each 
axle was confined on a firm anvil with the end projecting over and un- 
supported for about twelve inches. In this position a hammer weighing 
150 pounds was dropped twelve feet, striking the end of the axle, each one 
of which was four and a half inches in diameter. Ten blows were struck, 
then the axle was turned over and the same number of blows given on the 
opposite side, and so continued until the axle was broken. The following 
is the result :— E. Corning & Company’s axles, made of laggoted bar, iron- 
hammered, stood 193 blows; Wyandott axles, made from Lake Superior 
iron, stood fourteen blows; Cleveland axles, made from scrap iron,’stood 
eleven blows ; showing a very wide difference in the strength of the differ- 
ent axles. 


ON THREAD OR FIBRE GILDING. 


The following is an abstract of a paper recently read before the Royal 
Institution, London, by Mr. F. Bennoch, on the operations of fibre gilding, 
and upon some new improvements recently effected in this department cf 
art. 

The author first described the mode of manufacture adopted in India, in 
the city of Pactun, situated on the river Godavery, famed for its manufac- 
tures in gold and silver tissues. 

The long shawls which are thrown over the shoulders of the native 
princes on state occasions frequently cost as much as £300 each. The 
weft is composed of very fine cotten-thread, generally scarlet or green, 
the warp being of silk of a similar color. The shawls are formed of 
long strips of about an inch in width, and placed alternately —a strip of 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 61 


scarlet and a stripe of gold, the ends are of cloth of gold, about a yard in 
depth, and the whole shawl is surrounded by a rich border of flowers or 
birds in variegated silks, woven ona gold ground. The process by which 
this gold thread used in these fabrics is manufactured is as follows : — 

A rod of silver, weighing about twenty-two rupees, after having been 
roughened by a file, is covered with a leaf of the best gold, weighing one, so 
that gold forms one twenty-third part of the whole metal. ‘The rod of silver 
having been wetted, the gold leaf is laid on, and pressed with the finger and 
afterwards rubbed smartly on the thigh. The edges of the gold leaf that 
come in contact are beaten a little thinner than the body of the leaf, so as to 
secure, as nearly as possible, uniform thickness. The bar so prepared is heated 
in a pan of charcoal till it becomes red-hot. It is then taken out and ham- 
mered, and rubbed with a piece of wood, and is ready to undergo the first 
process of being drawn into wire. The rod is, at this time, about the thick- 
ness of a man’s thumb, and from six to eight inches in length. In the wire- 
drawer’s house there is a pit dug in the floor, about thirty inches deep, con- 
taining a rude horizontal wooden cylinder, or beam, turning on pivots. In 
this cylinder are fixed four handspikes, over one of which is slipped a ring, to 
which is attached a chain, with a ring at the other end. Through this ring 
is slipped the head of a pair of pincers, in the jaws of which is placed the end 
of the gilt bar, which had previously been hammered at one end, so as to 
ennable it to pass through the hole pierced in a steel plate, through which the 
bar has to be drawn, and, being drawn, is reduced in diameter, and propor- 
tionably increased in length. As the cylinder revolves, the rod of metal 
lengthens, and winds round the cylinder. To lessen the friction in passing 
through the holes, the rod is invariably rubbed over with wax. Having 
passed through the holes in the steel plate, each hole being a degree finer than 
the other, the wire is coiled up and reheated, or annealed, by which it is soft- 
ened, or made more malleable. This process of drawing and heating is 
repeated over and over again, until the wire is reduced to the substance of 
ordinary whip-cord. The wire is subsequently passed through a steel plate 
pierced with fifteen or twenty holes of different degrees of fineness. To 
make the wire pass easily through the finer hole, it is rubbed at the end be- 
tween two pieces of porcelain, then slipped through the hole— caught with 
a pair of nippers, and attached to a limb or spoke of the empty reel, which 
is turned by the hand, and the wire is driven through with perfect ease. 
This operation is continued and repeated until the wire becomes as fine as 
the finest hair. 

In this state it is too weak to be woven, and must be united with some 
fibre before it can be worked in the loom. In order that it may readily 
attach itself to the thread, it becomes necessary that it should be flattened, 
which is done by beating it with a highly polished steel hammer, on an 
anvil. Hight or ten wires are flattened at one time. The flattened wire is 
next passed into the hands of a spinner or plater of gold thread. Few im- 
provements have been made in the system since the manufacture first be- 
gan, and the greater portion of the inhabitants of Pactun are engaged in its © 
different branches. 


6 


62 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


In European art, silver is generally the basis of what is called gold thread. 
The silver in greatest favor with wire-drawers is extracted from lead. The 
manner in which the silver is separated from the lead is very simple: when 
the lead is melted and in a perfectly liquid state, it is poured into a vessel not 
unlike the large filters used by distillers in charging their barrels. The un- 
der part is placed over a fire, so as to keep the narrow or funnel portion at 
a certain degree of temperature. The silver, being of a greater specific 
gravity than the lead, cools more slowly. The result is, that while the 
lead is cooling, the silver sinks or falls to the bottom, and while the lead 
is becoming a solid mass, the silver retains its liquid character, and can be 
drawn off nearly pure. Of the silver so produced, a certain quantity is 
weighed — say from 400 to 500 ounces, and placed in a crucible, which is 
placed in a charcoal fire, and there remains until the metal it contains is of 
nearly a white heat. When heated as described, it is ready to be poured 
into the ingot mould. These moulds are best made of iron. The largest 
mould is in two pieces, kept together by very strong clamps and screws, and 
when the metal it sufficiently set, the screws are loosened, the mould sepa- 
rates, and the ingot of silver falls easily out. The ingot so cast is about 
two inches in diameter, and from twenty to twenty-four inches in length. 
The bar, or ingot, is then placed in a charcoal fire until red-hot, and after- 
wards well hammered. This beating and hammering continues until the 
bar is reduced to a size suitable for the first hole or die through which it has 
to be drawn, and is increased in length from four to five inches, or about 
twenty per cent. The bar so prepared is pointed, and made to fit the first 
die through which it has to pass, and laid on the draw-bench with the point 
slipped through the die. The point is then seized by the jaws of a pair of 
monster pincers or draw tongues, with short bow arms, at the end of each 
of which is a hook that slips over a ring attached to the end of a strong 
chain cable, drawn by a steam-engine exerting the power of sixteen horses. 
The greater the draught the tighter the grip, and the ingot passes through 
the first die with the greatest ease, and is reduced in diameter, but increased 
in length from ten to fifteen per cent. This process is repeated ten or twelve 
times, each time the rod being drawn through a smaller die. As the rich- 
ness of the wire depends upon the thickness of the goid laid on, and as all 
the gold leaves are very nearly, if not absolutely, of the same substance, the 
quality of the wire is regulated by the number of leaves placed one over the 
other, and these vary from ten to thirty leaves. The bar, when overspread 
with leaf, is enveloped in paper and tied tightly round with cord, and placed 
in the centre of a heap of lighted charcoal, where it remains until it assumes 
a bright-red heat: after being burnished, and when quite smooth, it is per- 
mitted to cool gradually. 

When quite cool, the surface is covered with wax, and then commences 
the more rapid reduction of size by drawing the bar through graduated steel 
dies, highly polished: after which it is heated and drawn through a hole, 
which removes all wax and dirt from the surface. 

The steel dies are then dispensed with, because, from experience, it was 
found that the holes were liable to become what wire-drawers call square ; 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 63 


and, until within a comparatively recent period, the ounce of metal could not 
be drawn into more than nine hundred or one thousand yards. 

The author said that one of the firm to which he was indebted was, he 
believed, the first to suggest the use of a jewelled die. They experienced 
many difficulties at first; but all were overcome, and a perforated ruby, set 
in a metallic frame, answered admirably, and enabled the drawer to produce 
from one ounce of metal, a wire a mile and a quarter long. In connection 
with this discovery, it is somewhat singular that there are not more than 
three men in London capable of perforating and setting these ruby dies 
properly; and one man, who works probably not more than three hours a 
day on the average, has received from one wire-drawing firm as much as 
£500 or £600 in asingle year, while they only pay from four to five shillings 
for each die. 

So great is the tenacity of even the finest size, that a piece of wire twelve 
inches long will bear twelve ounces in weight. It is now ready to be flat- 
tened preparatory to spinning round the silk. The flattening machine con- 
sists of only two rollers for it to pass between, the one being about ten, and 
the other about four inches in diameter, and about two inches wide, slightly 
convex on the face. To impress a substance as fine as a hair, and flatten it 
to twice or treble its original width, requires the nicest possible adaptation of 
parts. A single pair of rollers costs £120. The metal is of the rarest 
quality of steel, and the polish higher than the finest glass. At one time 
these rollers were made in Sheffield, but now they are manufactured in 
Rhenish Prussia. 

The wire so flattened is now wound on small bobbins, which are placed on 
the edge of circular rings, attached to a bar over a spinning frame. On the 
front of the frame, twelve inches from the floor, are bobbins of silk, the 
threads of which ascend and pass through the centre of the ring to which 
the reel with wire is fixed. The whole is set in motion, and while the thread 
is being twisted, the ring with the wire revolves round the thread in the op- 
posite direction, and thirty or forty threads are plated at once. In its new 
form, though only gold is seen, probably nine tenths of its bulk is silk, while 
of the remaining one tenth, aay one-fiftieth part is gold, —so by labor and 
ingenuity we are put in possession of a gold thread, — of which only one part 
in five hundred is gold. 

Let us glance only for a moment at the labor required to reduce the ingot 
of silver, weighing 420 ounces, to the finished wire, weighing 360 ounces, 
sixty ounces having been cut off —not destroyed —in the several processes 
of pointing, planing, and occasional accidental waste. Allowing ten hours 
to the day, it would take one man seventy days or ten weeks to reduce by 
his labor the ingot of silver, weighing 420 ounces, to its finest size. But no 
one man is equal to the entire duty. The eariy processes demand the exer- 
cise of Titanic powers, while the later a demand the lightest touch 
of almost fairy fingers. 

There may be some errors in this estimate, arising from imperfect inform- 
ation, but the author believed it would be found sufficiently accurate to en- 
able one to estimate the labor required to make four hundred ounces of 


64 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


silver, in a bar twenty inches long, stretch over five hundred miles. But as 
the four hundred ounces of silver is gilt with only cight ounces of gold leaf, 
each leaf weighing eighteen grains, and four inches square, it follows tha 
only one-fiftieth part of the wire is gold. So cight ounces of gold in com- 
bination with silver, is made to stretch five hundred miles, or over sixty 
miles for a single ounce. As, from first to last, the wire passes through one 
hundred to one hundred and twenty dics, it follows that the ingot in its 
course traverses over fifty thousand miles, or twice the circumference of the 
globe. 

In London, he believed that five hundred ounces of metal could be drawn 
into wire, while fifty are drawn at Pactun. In London it can be drawn 2,000 
or even 2,200 yards to the ounce, while in Pactun they stop short of 1,000, 
or 1,200. 

For many years chemists have attempted every known method of gitding, 
in the hope of discovering some process by which silk, or other fibre, could 
be gilded without applying the immense labor, seen to be necessary, before 
a thread with a covering of gold can be used with facility in the loom, and 
woven into cloth; but they always failed. In France, where scientific re- 
search is liberally promoted by the government, a large reward was offered 
for a successful plan, but no man eyer had the opportunity or satisfaction 
of claiming it. The electro process gave a fresh impulse to scientific 
men. 

The difficulties of the first stage were soon overcome, and gold was com- 
pelled to attach itself to the surface of the thread. A new difficulty arose 
— the thread, being completely soaked, was long in drying, and when dried, 
had lost its lustre ; while the foundation on which the gold rested was so soft 
and flimsy, that to burnish it was impossible. Among the several investi- 
gators was Mr. Albert Hock, who, failing to find in chemistry the principle 
by which fibres could be gilded, succeeded by means of a simple mechanical 
contrivance. 

The author said he had felt how difficult it was to find words calculated to 
explain the simplest mechanical movement, and then the difficulty increased 
a hundred fold. In the first place, it is essential that the silk used should 
be of a superior quality, free from knotty nibs and rough places. The gum 
must be boiled out of the silk, and then the silk tinged to the shade of a light 
orange; itis then wound on bobbins, the bobbins are placed on a wire, on 
which they revolve when gently pulled. The end of the thread is passed 
over a wire, and then under a roller, which works in a trough containing a 
glutinous but transparent liquid. It then passes over a reel attached to an 
endless screw or threaded spindle, so arranged that it lays on a brass cylin- 
der, the thread of silk as close as cords are wound round the handle of a 
whip, without overlapping, until the cylinder is completely covered with the 
silk, when the thread is broken; the length of the skein of thread depends 
therefore, upon the size of the cylinder and fineness of the thread, but the 
cylinder cannot be increased beyond a certain size, and that size must not be 
larger than can be spanned by a single leaf of gold, and the gold-beaters will 
not produce it larger than three and three-eighths of an inch square. The cylin- 


~ 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 635 


der being covered with silk in a gummy state, the book with the gold leaf is 
opened and laid on the palm of the hand ; the machine — something like a 
turning lathe— is moved; the edge of the leaf is made to touch the gum 
silk, and it is quickly drawn round the cylinder covering the silk. This is 
repeated until the entire surface of the roller is covered with gold leaf. A 
piece of cloth or washed leather is fastened on a slip of wood, something like 
arazor-strop. The roller is turned round and the strop pressed firmly upon 
the leaf, which not only presses the leaf closer to the silk, but separates the 
leaf between each of the windings of the finest thread. Thus one side of the 
finest thread is gilded. It is thus apparent that if gold and green, or any 
other color, is desired in combination with gold, we have only, first, to dye 
the thread the color we require, and then, by gilding one side, we secure the 
combination wished. To gild the entire thread we have only to wind the 
half-gilded thread on to another roller. The gilded side of the silk thread 
necessarily winds next to the brass on the second roller, leaving the ungilt 
part of the thread exposed, and ready to be treated in the same manner as 
before described, and so the process is completed. It is then wound on to 
reels of the usual size, and permitted to dry thoroughly. The color by this 
process is very beautiful, being the natural color of the gold leaf. The great 
advantage of this over every other thread is its lightness and perfect flexi- 
bility, for it can be wound and woven wherever any other thread can be 
wound or woven. 

As regards cost it is, size for size, considerably dearer than the ordinary 
gold thread, but as it measures a much greater length for the weight, it vir- 
tually becomes, for wearing purposes, very much cheaper. 


MACHINE SPINNING. 


Machine spinning has now increased to such gigantic dimensions that it 
forms one, if not the most important department of industrial labor. It is 
calculated that there are at present in use throughout the world forty millions 
of spindles used for spinning cotton, eight millions for spinning wool, and 
three millions for spinning linen, severally divided among the various coun- 
tries, as follows:—Great Britain, 21,000,000 cotton, 2,470,000 wool, 
2,000,000 linen; United States, 6,000,000 cotton, 1,400,000 wool, 15,000 
linen; France, 5,500,000 cotton, 850,000 wool, 350,000 linen ; Germany and 
Switzerland, 3,500,000 cotton, 1,640,000 wool, 162,000 linen; Russia, 
1,000,000 cotton, 510,000 wool, 50,000 linen; Belgium, 900,000 cotton, 
200,000 wool, 150,000 linen; Spain, 800,000 cotton, 18,000 wool, 6,000 
linen; Italy, Portugal and the rest of the world, 1,300,000 cotton, 912,000 
wool, 264,000 linen. The acknowledged superiority of the spinning machine- 
ry generally used in this country, enables us to produce a greater amount 
of material per spindle than any other, which not only tends to lessen the 
apparently great disproportion of the number of spindles employed here and 
in Great Britain, but enables us to compete successfully with them in their 
home market in the cheaper description of cotton goods. Improvements of 
great value have been made of late years in the construction and operation 
of spindles for cotton. One of the most recent is a short spindle to which is 


6* 


66 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


fitted a warve revolving around it. Projecting from the upper end of the 
- warve is a tube, which, entering the base of the bobbin, gives motion to the 
bobbin in part, the other part being secured by a pin in the base of the bob- 
bin, suited to and entering into a hole in the upper plane of the warve. 
Motion is communicated to the warve, and thus to the bobbin, in the same 
way as it is given on a frame of live spindles. 


ON THE TORSION OF COTION FIBRES. 


The fibres of cotton, as used in the ordinary manufactures of this country, 
have a torsion by which, under the microscope, they are readily distinguished 
from linen and other natural fibrous substances. Mr. Bauer was the first, 
we believe, who observed and delineated the peculiarities of cotton structure 
as to the torsion of the fibre. Dr. Ure, in his ‘Philosophy of Manufac- 
tures,” gives drawings from Mr. Bauer’s observations. Mr. French, of 
Bolton, England, from some observations recently made, considers that the 
twist does not exist in the unripened fibre in the pod, but only in the ripe 
cotton. After the torsion is once effected by the sun or otherwise, it remains 
through all the operations to which the fibre is subjected. Several practical 
improvements seem to be suggested by attending to these microscopical 
peculiarities of structure. For instance, Mr. French suggests, that if the 
twists in filaments of cotton are in one direction, by continuing this arrange- 
ment throughout the process of spinning, a thread of greater tenuity, with 
more strength and smoothness, may be procured than by the present process, 
which twists one half of the fibres composing a thread in one direction, and 
the other half in the reverse direction. By following the natural parallelism 
of the fibre a degree of elasticity would also be imparted to the yarn, and its 
fabric be altogether improved. 


STATISTICS OF TEXTILE MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 


The number of factories from which schedules were received by the factory 
inspectors in 1856, amounted to 5,117, against 4,600 in 1850, and 4,217 in 
1838. Of these, 2,210 were cotton factories, 1,505 woollen, 525 worsted, 
417 flax, and 460 silk. The cotton factories have increased 14°2 per cent., 
and the silk sixty-six per cent. The woollen trade is becoming concentrated 
in Yorkshire, and the worsted manufacture is almost exclusively confined to 
the same county. ‘The flax trade is most vigorous in Ireland. The number 
of spindles and looms in 1856 was respectively 33,503,580 of the former, and 
369,205 of the latter, and the actual horse power given in the returns is 
161,435. Power looms have increased from 115,801 (in 1836) to the 
number already indicated, namely, 369,205. The average value of the 
cotton goods and yarn exported in the three years, 1853, 1854 and 1855, 
was, in round numbers, £31,000,000; of woollen and worsted goods and 
yarn, the average exports for three years amounted to £10,000,000. The 
number of children employed has decreased considerably in flax and woollen 
factories, while it has increased in worsted. The total number of children 
under thirteen years of age employed in all kinds of factories last year 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 67 


amounted to 46,071; the number of males between thirteen and eighteen to 
72,220; the number of females above thirteen to 387,826; and the number 
of males above eighteen years to 176,400, making a grand aggregate array 
of 682,497. There were during the half year 1,919 accidents from machin- 
ery, and fifty-three not due to machinery. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN COTTON SPINNING. 


S. C. Lister and J. Warburton, of Yorkshire, England, have recently 
secured an American patent on some important improvements in the spin- 
ning of yarn from cotton while it is in the wet state. They have discovered 
that yarn may be advantageously spun from cotton in that state, and it 
will be stronger and finer than when spun dry. The cotton is wetted, after 
having been properly carded with warm water, and then spun between gutta 
percha or leather rollers, these allowing only a certain quantity of moisture 
to be retained. 


MACHINE FOR GINNING SEA ISLAND COTTON. 


A machine for rapidly ginning Sea Island cotton has been recently in- 
vented by Mr. L. S. Chichester, of New York, and is said to fully accom- 
plish the object so long sought to be obtained. It is formed of two rollers, 
twenty inches long, placed in contact, one above the other. The lower 
roller, of vulcanized rubber, is three inches in diameter, and gives motion to 
the upper roller, which is fluted, and made of polished steel one inch and a 
quarter in diameter. In front of the rollers is an iron plate supported on 
centres below, extending up nearly to the line of contact of the rollers, ter- 
minating at the upper edge in a small bead or Jedge, and has a rapid motion 
toward and from the bight of the rollers. The seed cotton is fed over a 
table, and is carried between the rollers and thrown off behind by a revoly- 
ing fan, while the seeds are retained in front and ripped out by the combined 
action of the vibrating-plate and the steel roller. The machine professes to 
deliver three hundreds pounds of ginned cotton in a day, without crushing a 
seed. It can be worked by hand if preferred. It saves the expense and loss 
by drying, sunning and moting, and yields the fibre in unbroken and per- 
fect condition. The inventor is sanguine that his machine will greatly in- 
crease the production of Sea Island cotton, which is at present but 50,000 
bags, of three hundred pounds each. Much of the territory suited to its growth 
is unoccupied for lack of a machine that will do for the fine cottons what 
Whitney’s Gin, when first introduced, did for the short staple. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE PREPARATION OF FLAX FIBRES. 


An Irish improvement in the preparation of flax fibres consists in throw- 
ing down upon the flax a small quantity of oil, say about an ounce to the 
pound of flax, which is done by boiling the flax in an alkaline soap ley, 
washing with water, and then boiling it in water, lightly acidulated with 
some acid, —acetic acid being, perhaps, the most suitable from its exerting 
no injurious action upon vegetable fibre. The acid decomposes the soap, 
the fatty constituent of which is left in the fibre, or, perhaps, a mixture of an 


68 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


acid soap and asmall portion of free oil. These enter into and through 
every part of the fibre. After this treatment it is washed, and is then found 
to be soft and silky, its spinning quality being thereby much improved and 
its value very much increased. 


DISCOVERIES RELATIVE TO COINAGE. 


At the last session of Congress a joint resolution was passed, authorizing 
the Secretary of the Treasury to appoint two competent commissioners to 
inquire into the processes and means claimed to have been discovered by 
Dr. J. T. Barclay, for preventing the abrasion, counterfeiting and deteriora- 
tion of the coins of the United States, who are to report to the Depart- 
ment as to the value of the alleged discovery. An appropriation of 
$2,500 was also made to carry on the experiments at the Philadelphia Mint. 

In accordance with this resolution, the Secretary of the Treasury appoint- 
ed Professors Robert Rogers and Vethake, of Philadelphia, to examine and 
report upon the plan in question. 

The memorialist, in his papers submitted to the Finance Committee of 
Congress, states “ that he discovered many years ago a process, by means of 
which a portion of the precious metal may be abstracted from gold and 
silver coin at the cost of a fraction of a cent for every dollar’s worth thus 
withdrawn — the appearance of the coin being so little affected by the opera- 
tion, that about one-tenth of its value may be abstracted in such a manner 
that the fraud cannot be readily detected by the unaided senses.”? The Dr. 
on ascertaining this process in the course of his chemical experiments, and 
seeing how dangerous it would prove if generally known, set about finding 
a process which could prevent reduction in the value of our coin. Afitcr a 
series of experiments, he claims to have ‘‘ discovered certain means, which, 
if adopted at the Mint, would materially diminish the liability of subsequent 
coinage to such fraudulent practices,” and has at last matured a process of 
a remedial nature, to such a degree, that if it does not render the coin ab- 
solutely insusceptible of reduction, will at least so far diminish its liability to 
such a process, that the rate of reduction would be so small, and the risk of 
detection so great, as virtually to guarantee its immunity. 

The memorialist also claims to have discovered a process of mintage by 
which successful counterfeiting will be rendered impracticable and unremu- 
nerative. But what is most worthy of consideration, he claims to have dis- 
covered a means by which it is practicable by a certain process of depletion 
and compensation connected with electro metallurgy, to abstract one-half of 
the precious metal from coin without appreciably diminishing its weight, or 
in the slightest degree affecting either its impression, appearance or dimen- 
sions. 

A correspondent of the New York Commercial Advertiser states that the 
memorialist exhibited to the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Finance 
Committee, coins which had been subjected to that process, and which it 
was ascertained by actual experiment, had lost half their current value, but 
which could not be distinguished from other coin. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 69 


ON THE HARDENING OF STEEL. 


“There are few things of which it is more difficult to understand the 
rationale than hardening steel; or why the same operation, of heating red 
hot and plunging into a cold fluid, which hardens steel, should soften 
copper. 

“Some persons will explain everything, whether they understand it or not, 
and for this also have they found, in their own imaginations, a perfectly 
satisfactory answer, and cut the difficulty by saying steel is condensed by 
the operation ; but, unfortunately for their theory, the reverse is the fact, and 
instead of being condensed, it is expanded by hardening, as any one may 
soon satisfy himself by taking a piece of steel as it leaves the forge or anvil, 
and fitting it exactly into a gauge, or between two fixed points, and then 
hardening it; it will then be found that the steel will not now go into the 
gauge or between the fixed points. Or let him rivet together a piece of steel 
to a piece of iron, filing the ends of both even, so that they may be exactly 
the same length, then heat them to a proper heat to harden the steel, and 
plunge them into water, he will find the expansive force of the steel has 
nearly torn the rivets out, and that it extends beyond the iron at both ends. 
Any article may be taken with steel on one surface and iron on the other — 
such as a joiner’s plane-iron in the forged state— flat on both surfaces, and 
hardened ; and the expansion of the steel will cause that side to be convex, 
and the iron side concave. 

‘* All steel expands in hardening, but that the most which is most highly 
converted, and in direct proportion to the amount of carbon it received in 
that process. No other general rule can be given for the heating of steel for 
hardening than this —that it should in all cases be heated as regular as pos- 
sible to the lowest temperature at which that particular kind of stecl will 
harden, and as little as possible beyond it, remembering that the more highly 
converted the steel is, the lower the temperature at which it will harden; 
and that asmall article, such as a pen-knife blade, will harden at a lower 
temperature than a more bulky one made of the same steel, because the 
small article is more suddenly cooled. ‘The hardening of very bulky arti- 
cles, such as the face of an anvil, cannot be effected in the same way as 
smaller articles, by plunging them into water; for the length of time re- 
quired in cooling will be almost certain to leave the middle of the face soft, 
where it is of the most consequence thatit should be hard. Where the anvil 
forge is worked by water-power, they possess the best means of hardening 
them, which is this: — The anvil properly heated, should be placed in a 
water tank, face upwards, under a shuttie connected with the mill-dam; the 
shuttie drawn, and a heavy and continuous stream of water let fall from a 
height of ten or twelve feet upon the anvil face, which effectually hardens 
the surface. 

“A red hot anvil plunged into water, would, for a time, be surrounded by 
an atmosphere of steam, which would prevent its direct contact with the 
cold water, whereby its cooling would be retarded too much to harden the 
face; and hence the advantage of a continuous stream of cold water. 


70 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Hence, also, the necessity of moving about in the water even articles of a 
pound or two in weight, to remove them away from the steam as it is gen- 
erated upon their surfaces, and thus promote more rapid cooling. 

“Ttisa good plan to harden hammer-faces, where there is a tub and 
water-tap conveniently near, by plunging the red-hot hammer, held with the 
face upwards, into the water, so that a stream from the tap may fall upon its 
face. The face of hammers and anvils is ground after being hardened, but 
should never be tempered.” —Orr’s Circle of the Sciences. 


HARDENING IRON AND STEEL. 


A correspondent of the London Engineer Journal gives the following in- 
teresting memoranda, the result of his experience on the hardening of iron 
and steel : — 

“‘Hardening steel is a very peculiar operation, and is one of the greatest 
contingencies in the manufacture of articles into which it is transformed. 
Under the most careful management, I have seen very expensive articles in 
tools and cutlery rendered perfectly useless through the seeming caprice of 
the two elements, fire and water; if such articles had been rubbed in prus- 
siate of potash, which gives the metal a sort of liquid case, I think cracking 
in the water, so common an occurrence with superior articles, would be pre- 
vented, particularly if the water used were soft, and by the infusion of a 
little hot water rendered lukewarm. In hardening iron the very opposite 
course should be pursued; have the water cold as possible, the harder the 
better; a little quick lime in it would also be an improvement, and if the 
iron to be hardened be heated nearly to a white heat, rubbed with or rolled 
with pulverized prussiate of potash, a steel surface is sure to be obtained. 
The use of prussiate of potash might be a great improvement to the tools 
used by miners. Their picks and spades would wear longer if hardened 
with it in the manner I have described. It must be remembered that it is 
only the surface of the iron which is affected, and the hardening will not 
penetrate more extensively than the thickness of ordinary tin plates ; but the 
resistance is so superior to that of iron unhardened, that it would be a great 
saving in the cost of working-tools. There is another advantage ; it would 
not render the iron brittle, consequently there would not be an increase in 
breakage, which is of considerable importance to the owners of extensive 
workings.”’ 

From another sourse also, we obtain the following :— When a piece of 
steel is crooked, or when some portions of it are thicker than others, or 
the whole is very thick, the ordinary process of hardening in water is im- 
practicable, as the piece would crack or twist. For this reason, when ex- 
actness is required in a piece of machinery, it is made of soft steel, though 
hardened metal would be preferable in most cases. The following process 
does away with the difficulties just mentioned. Leta vessel be half filled 
with clear water, half with oil; when the heated piece is blood-red, dip it in 
the upper layerof oil, and as soon as this ceases to boil let it go to the bot- 
tom into the water. This plan gives steel the proper degree of hardness for 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 71 


dies or pieces of machinery ; it is unnecessary to soften it over a fire, as 
when hardened in water. 


CN BELLS AND BELL-FOUNDING. 


The following memoranda on bells and bell-founding, is derived from a 
paper on the above subject read before the Royal Institution of Great Brit- 
ain, by Mr. Denison, the founder of the bells intended for the clock and 
peal of the palace of Westminster, London. 

The problem we were called upon to solve in making the largest bell, 
said Mr. D., was, not to produce a bell of any given note, but to make the 
best bell that can be made of a given weight of fourteen tons, which had 
been fixed as the intended weight. When I say the best bell that can be 
made, I mean a combination of the most powerful and most pleasing sound 
that can be got—not, observe, the deepest sound; for we could get any 
depth of note we liked out of the given weight, by merely making the bell 
thinner, larger, and worse, as I shall explain further presently. All that I 
have to do, therefore, is to describe the opservations and experiments which 
led me to adopt the particular form and composition which have been used 
for this the largest bell that has ever been cast in England. The result is, 
undoubtedly, a bell which gives a sound of a different quality and strength 
from any of the other great bells in England. Of course it is very easy to 
say, as some persons have said, that we have got a clapper so much larger 
than usual, in proportion to the bell, that the sound must needs be different. 
But the reply to that is equally easy; the bell-founders always make the 
clapper at their own discretion ; and in order to make the most they can of 
their bells, you may be sure they will make the clapper either as large as 
they dare, with regard to the strength of the bell, or as large as they find it 
of any use to make it; because there is always a limit, beyond which you 
can get no more sound from a bell by increasing the clapper. In the West- 
minster bell we found that we could go on increasing the sound by increas- 
ing the clapper up to thirteen cwt., or say twelve cwt., excluding the 
shank or handle of the clapper, or about one twenty-seventh of the weight 
of the bell; which is somewhat higher than the proportion found to hold 
in some of the great continental bells ; but two or three times as high as the 
usual English proportion. 

I have said already that you may get any depth of note out of a bell of 
any weight by making it thin enough. At first, everybody who hears a 
bell, like that which stood at the west end of the Exhibition of 1851, sound- 
ing with twenty-nine cwt. very nearly the same note as our sixteen-ton bell, 
is ready to pronounce the common form of bell, with a sound-bow of one 
twelfth or sixteenth of its diameter, a very absurd waste of metal. But 
did it ever occur to them to consider how far they could hear that twenty- 
nine ewt. hemispherical bell? It could not be heard as far as a common 
bell of two or three cwt.; and before you get to any great distance from a bell 
of that kind, the sound becomes thin and poor, and what we call in bell- 
founding language, potty. Up to seven or eight inches, these bells do 
very well for house clocks, to. be heard at a little distance; but nothing, 


72 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in my opinion, can be worse than the bells of this shape, two or three feet 
in diameter, which people seem to be so fond of buying for the new fashioned 
cemeteries : whether from ignorance that they will sound very differently 
on the top of a chapel and in the bell-founder’s shop, or because they think 
a melancholy and unpleasant sound appropriate, or because they want to 
buy their noise as cheap as possible, I do not pretend to say. These bells, 
and thin bells of any shape, bear the same kind of relation to thick ones, 
as the spiral striking wires of the American clocks bear to the common 
hemispherical clock bells —z. e., they have a deeper but a weaker sound, 
and are only fit to be heard very near. A gong is another instrument in 
which a deep note, and a very loud noise at a small distance, may be got 
with a small weight of metal; but it is quite unfit for a clock to strike upon, 
not merely from the character of its sound, but because it can only be roused 
into full vibration by an accumulation of soft blows. Gongs are made of 
malleable bell-metal, about four of copper to one of tin, which is malleable 
when cooled suddenly. The Chinese bells, some of which are very large, 
may be considered the next approximation towards the established form ; 
for they are (speaking roughly) a prolate hemispheroid, but with the lip 
thickened ; whereby the sound is made higher in pitch but stronger, and 
better adapted for sounding at a distance when struck with a heavy enough 
hammer. But still the shape of the Chinese bells is very bad for producing 
sound of a pleasing quality ; and generally it may be said, at least I have 
thought so ever since I began bell ringing twenty-four years ago, that all 
bells of which the slant side is not hollowed out considerably, are deficient 
in musical tone. The Chinese bells are not concave but convex in the slant 
side. " 

If you make eight bells, of any shape and material, provided they are all 
of the same, and their sections exactly similar figures (in the mathematical 
sense of the word), they will sound the eight notes of the diatonic scale, if 
all their dimensions are in these proportions — 60, 534, 48, 45, 40, 36, 32, 
30; which are merely convenient figures for representing, with only one 
fraction, the inverse proportions of the times of vibration belonging to the 
eight notes of the scale. And so, if you want to make a bell, a fifth above 
a given one, it must be two thirds of the size in every dimension, unless you 
mean to vary the proportion of thickness to diameter; for the same rule 
then no longer holds, as a thinner bell will give the same note with a less 
diameter. The reason is, that, according to the general law of vibrating 

. : : : oe : thickness 
plates or springs, the time of vibration of similar bells varies as —-—__—_ 
(diamcier) 
When the bells are also completely similar solids, the thickness itself varies 
as the diameter, and then the time of vibration may be said simply to vary in- 
versely as the diameter. The weights of bells of similar figures of course 
vary as the cubes of their diameters, and may be nearly cnough represented 
by these numbers — 216, 152, 110, 91, 64, 46, 33, 27. 

The exact tune of a set of bells, as they come out of the moulds, is quite 
a secondary consideration to their tone or quality of sound, because the notes 
can be altered a little either way by cutting, but the quality of the tone will 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 73 


remain the same forever; except that it gets louder for the first two or 
three years that the bell is used, probably from the particles arranging them- 
selves more completely in a crystalline order under the hammering, as is 
well known to take place even in wrought iron. 

We may now consider the composition of bell-metal. It is so well known 
to consist generally of from five to three of copper to one of tin, that all the - 
alloys of that kind are technically called bell-metal, whatever purpose they 
may be used for; just as the softer alloys of eight or ten to one are called 
gun-metal ; and the harder and more brittle alloy of two to one is called 
speculum-metal. But you may wish to know whether it has been clearly 
ascertained that there is no other metal or alloy which would answer better, 
or equally well and cheaper. The only ones that have been suggested are 
aluminium, either pure or alloyed with copper; cast steel; the iron and tin 
alloy, called union-metal; and perhaps we may add glass. The first is, of 
course, out of the question at present, as it is about fifty times as dear as 
copper, even reckoning by bulk, and much more by weight. I have not 
heard any large steel bells myself, but Ihave met with scarcely anybody 
who has, and does not condemn them as harsh and disagreeable, and having 
in fact nothing to recommend them except their cheapness. Much the same 
may be said of the iron and tin alloy, called union-metal. I have seen also 
some cheap bells, evidently composed chiefly of iron, but Ido not know 
what else, and they are much worse than the union-metal bells. It is 
hardly necessary to say much of glass, because its brittleness is enough to 
disqualify it for use in bells: but besides that, the sound is very weak, com- 
pared with a bell-metal bell of the same size, or even the same weight, and 
of course much smaller. ‘There is another metal, which you will probably 
expect me to notice as a desirable ingredient in bells, that is silver. All 
that I have to say of it is, that it is a purely poetical and not a chemical in- 
gredient of any known bell-metal ; and that there is no foundation whatever 
for the vulgar notion that it was used in old bells, nor the least reason to 
believe that it would do any good. I happened to hear of an instance 
where it had been tried by a gentleman who had put his own silver into the 
pot at the bell-foundry, some years ago. I wrote to him to inquire about it, 
and he could not say that he remembered any particular effect. This seemed 
to me quite enough to settle that question. You may easily see for your- 
selves that a silver cup makes a rather worse bell than a cast-iron saucepan. 
Dr. Percy, who had taken great interest in this subject, has cast several 
other small bells, by way of trying the effect of different alloys, besides the 
iron and tin just now mentioned. Here is one of iron ninety-five, and an- 
timony five. The effect is not very different from that of iron and tin of the 
same proportions, and clearly not so good as copper and tin; and I should 
mention that antimony is generally considered to produce an analogous 
effect to tin in alloys, but always to the detriment of the metal in point of 
tenacity and strength. Again, here is a bell of a very singular composition, 
copper 88°65, and phosphorus 11:35. It makes a very hard compound, and 
capable of a fine polish, but more brittle than bell-metal, and inferior in 
sound even to the iron alloys. Copper 90°14, and aluminum 9°86, which 


74 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


makes the aluminum bear about the same proportion in bulk as the tin 
usually does, seemed much more promising. ‘The alloy exceeds any bell- 
metal in strength and toughness, and polishes like gold; and as was men- 
tioned in the lecture here on aluminum last year, it is superior to everything 
except gold and platinum in its resistance to the tarnishing effects of the 
air. This alloy would probably be an excellent material for watch wheels, 
the reeds of organ pipes, and a multitude of other things for which brass is 
now used —a far weaker and more easily corroded metal, but as yet much 
cheaper. But for all this, it will not stand for a moment against the old 
copper and tin alloys for bells ; in fact, it is clearly the worst of all that 
we have yet tried. Here is also a brass model for casting bells, which is of 
course a brass bell itself, and that is better than the phosphorus and alumi- 
num alloys, though inferior to bell-metal. (These were all exhibited.) So 
much for the compound metals that have been tried as a substitute for bell- 
metal. But we have now, through the kindness of M. Deville, of Paris, the 
opportunity of realizing the anticipation formed from the sonorousness of a 
bar of alluminum hung by a string, and struck. He has taken great pains 
in casting a bell of this metal, from a drawing of our Westminster bell, re- 
duced to six inches diameter. He has also turned the surface, which im- 
proves the sound of small bells, where the small unevenesses of casting bear 
a sensible proportion to the thickness of the metal, and in fact has done every- 
thing to produce as perfect an aluminum bell as possible, though at its present 
price it can hardly be regarded as more than a curiosity. But now for the 
great question of its sound. Jam afraid [ringing it] that it must be pro- 
nounced to exceed all the others in badness, as much as it does in cost. I 
cannot say I am much surprised ; indeed I did not expect it to be successful 
as a bell, any more than silver, merely because a bar of it will ring. But it 
was well worth while to try the experiment and settle it. Still the question 
remains, what are the best proportions for the copper and tin alloy, which 
we are now quite sure, in some proportions, will give the strongest, clearest, 
and best sound possible? They have varied from something less than three 
to something more than four of copper to one of tin, even disregarding the 
bad bells of modern times, some of which contain no more than ten per 
cent. of tin instead of from one fifth to one fourth, and no less than ten per 
cent. of zinc, lead, and iron adulteration. Without going through the de- 
tails of the various experiments, it will be sufficient to say that we found by 
irial, what seemed probable enough before trial, that the best metal for this 
purpose is that which has the highest specific gravity of all the mixtures of 
copper and tin. It is clear, however, that the copper now smelted will not 
carry so much tin as the old copper did without making the alloy too brittle 
to be safely used. We found that the three to one alloy, even melted twice 
over, had a conchoidal fracture like glass, and was very much more brittle 
than twenty-two to seven twice melted, or seven to two once melted; and 
accordingly, the metal used for the Westminster bells is twenty-two to seven 
twice melted ; or, reducing it for convenience of comparison to a percentage, 
the tin is 241 of the alloy (not of the copper), and the copper 75°86. This 
twenty-two to seven mixture, or even three and a half to one, which is prob- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 75 


ably the best proportion to use for bells made at one melting, is a much 
“higher” metal, as they call it, than the modern bell-founders, either Eng- 
lish or French, generally use. As there is no great difference in the price of 
the two metals, the reason why they prefer the lower quantity of tin is, that 
it makes the bells softer, and therefore easier to cut for turning, which is ob- 
viously a very insufficient reason. I advise every body who makes a con- 
tract for bells, to stipulate that they shall be rejected if they are found on 
analysis to contain less than twenty-two, or, at any rate, twenty-one per 
cent. of tin, or more than two per cent. of anything but copper and tin. 


Analysis of several Bell-Metals. 


g z York. | Lincoln. Westminster. 

e | © |Old Peal.| 1610. | Top. | Bottom. 
RNS rote aie sn ce ase o's vie es T1- | 72:4 72°76 74:7 75°31 15°07 
Tin (with Antimony),........| 26° | 24-2 25°39 23°11 24°37 24-7 

BCP iacute totes sistelsicicPalsse\s! ovsisieiae oiie ee: | 33 09 Ll 12 

AOE) c BOS bRoORS bolopbomouctoae ages wna te traces 
MBL Urea stapel aa ores iate iid shore) Sie hayes 4 Moree 1:16 traces | traces 
Nickel 85 58 
oe SS eee | ee ES ee 
Bpecitio Gravity sets or. ctoes cil dosan dows bale | 8°76 ais ii yee - ce 


COATING IRON WiTH GLASS. 


Mr. T. G. Salt, Birmingham, G. B., has patented a method of enamelling 
cast iron, or coating it with glass, by the use of pounded enamel or glass 
applied to the surface by means of gum water, or other adhesive matter, and 
afterwards fused. The surface of the cast iron is first cleaned by turning, 
filing, scouring, or otherwise ; and then is applied a thin coating of gum water 
or other adhesive solution, by sponging or brushing upon the said surface. 
While the surface is still damp, the powder described as mixture No. 1, is 
dusted on the surface. The article is then heated until the powder fuses, 
when a uniform gray vitreous surface is produced. If a white surface is re- 
quired, a second coating of the adhesive solution must be given, and the 
powder described as mixture No. 2, is dusted over it, and the article is again 
heated until the composition fuses. 

Mixture No. 1.— Oxide of lead, 20 lbs.; boracic acid, 20 lbs. ; cullet,* 
60 lbs.; soda, 3 lbs. 6 ozs.; nitre, 1 lb. 2 ozs.; oxide of manganese, 5 ozs. 
= 104 lbs. 13 ozs. 

Mixture No. 2.— Sand, 25 lbs.; cullet, 30 lbs.; oxide of lead, 50 Ibs. ; 
soda, 5% Ibs.; nitre, 4 lbs. 10 ozs.; white arsenic, 3% lbs.; oxide of anti- 
mony, 8% ozs. = 119 lbs. 10% ozs. 

These materials are pounded and intimately mixed, and then fused. The 
result is an enamel, which has to be again pounded, and then used as de- 
scribed. 


* Cullet, an English term for broken glass. 


~] 
o> 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


COATING IRON WITH COPPER. 


A patent has recently been granted in England to a Mr. Tytherleigh, for 
coating iron with copper, which is represented as successful in overcoming 
the difficulty hitherto experienced in causing the two metals permanently to 
unite. 

The principle of the process adopted under this patent is analogous to that 
of soldering, the difference being that the granulated metal used in soldering 
is spread over the surface of the iron, instead of being merely applied to the 
edges which the workmen desires to unite. Supposing, for example, that 
it is intended to coat a sheet of iron with brass, the patentee prepares the iron 
by what is technically called “pickling,” or cleansing it. He then spreads 
evenly over the surface the common brass solder, and over this he spreads a 
quantity of borax to actas a flux. The sheet so prepared is placed in a fur- 
nace heated to the proper degree, and after remaining in the fire for about 
ten seconds, is withdrawn and permitted to cool, the short space of time 
mentioned being amply sufficient to ensure the union of the metals. Iron 
thus coated has been subjected to the severest tests in annealing, rolling and 
planishing, and has successfully endured them all, the brass being so firmly 
united to the iron that nothing short of actually filing it down is able to 
effect a separation. By using a furnace with doors on opposite sides, and 
by the adoption of proper machinery, sheets of any size may be thus coated, 
and the process may be successfully performed on both sides of the sheet at 
the same time. For coating iron nails with brass and copper, the process 
employed is as follows: The metal is fused in a crucible or other proper 
vessel, and the flux being added, the articles to be coated are placed in the 
vessel. This method, which is applicable to the coating of nails and other 
small articles, affords results equally successful with sheets of flat surfaces. 

The advantages of such an invention are obvious. The innumerable 
articles now made of brass or copper may in future, should this invention be 
extensively adopted, be made of iron covered with either of those metals. 
Strength, lightness, and cheapness are amongst the principal advantages de- 
rivable from the use of the new material ; and in addition, the danger arising 
from oxidation in the case of iron may be entirely obviated. 


COATING ARTICLES OF IRON WITH METALLIC ALLOYS. 


An American patent has recently been granted for the above purpose to 
Joseph Poleux, which consists in preparing iron to receive the coating, by 
immersing it in concentrated mineral acids. As soon as the articles to be 
cleansed are immersed in the acid, one, two, or more small pieces of spelter 
are dropped among them, or the spelter is passed into the acid with the 
articles. ‘The acid acts at once and rapidly on the spelter, holds in solution 
what it dissolves, and precipitates a film of it on the minutest portions of 
the iron surfaces the instant the acid has cleansed them, and this film pro- 
tects such portions from any further action of the acid while remaining in 
it. Without the spelter, undiluted acid could not be used without great 
waste and injury to small or thin articles placed in it. The articles are next 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. te 


taken out, and, without being washed, dried, or undergoing any other treat- 
ment whatever, are passed immediately, though slowly, into the bath of 
melted alloy that forms the coating. Mr. Poleux employs muriatic, nitric, 
or sulphuric acid, of the ordinary degrees of concentration in commerce, 
(namely, muriatic, of 18° Beaume; nitric, 388° Beaume; and sulphuric, 66° 
Beaume, or thereabouts ), without dilution. — Scientific American. 


PRESERVATIVE PREPARATION FOR COATING METALS. 


A preparation for coating metals, highly spoken of in the English Mechan- 
ical journals, consists of a composition formed by mixing gutta-percha with 
common resin, tar, pitch, or asphaltum, and dissolving them in impure ben- 
zine, or coal naphtha, or other volatile hydro-carbons obtained from bitumin- 
ous shales or schists. ‘The method pursued in preparing is to dissolve two 
pounds of gutta-percha and four pounds of common resin, or tar, or pitch, 
and one ounce of gum shellac, in four gallons of coal naphtha, these ingredi- 
ents being placed in a suitable vessel and heated to about one hundred and 
sixty degrees Fahrenheit, until the solids are completely dissolved. When 
the composition is applied as a paint, coloring matter is added to give the 
required tint. 


IMPROVED ELASTIC TUBES FOR COUPLINGS. 


A method of making clastic tubes suitable for effecting the junctions of 
pipes exposed to variable temperatures, or of pipes which are otherwise 
strained or required to bend, as the tube-couplings connecting locomotives 
with their tenders, hose for fire-engines, etc., has been patented by Mr. 
James Webster, of Birmingham, England. The improved tubes are com- 
posed of brass, copper, or other metal or alloy, and in them a series of cor- 
rugations are made in planes perpendicular to the axis of the tube, to give 
elasticity to the tube, and permit of its flexure within certain limits. Web- 
ster prefers to make the corrugations as deep as is compatible with: the 
nature of the metal or alloy of which the tube is made, and so narrow that 
the shoulders between the corrugations shall touch each other on slight 
flexure of the tubes. Tubes made according to this invention are elastic, 
both longitudinally and transversely; that is to say, they are capable of 
elongation and flexure, within certain limits, without taking a set. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF MALLEABLE IRON. 


Mr. §S. Fisher, of Birmingham, England, has patented some improve- 
ments in the manufacture of anchors, shafting for mill and engine purposes, 
axles, cranks, and spindles ; and in the furnaces, or mufiles, used in those 
operations. ‘The improvements consist in casting the articles named in mal- 
leable iron, and afterwards annealing them in a peculiar kind of muffle. 
This muffle is built in the requisite shape to suit the article to be annealed, 
of fire-bricks moulded to a suitable form instead of using an iron muffle, 
which rapidly burns through. As the fire-brick muffle will last for numer- 
ous annealings, the new process will be productive of great economy in the 


cost of the operations to which it may be applied. 
7% 


78 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


IMPROVED ALLOY FOR TYPE. 


The alloy commonly used in the manufacture of printing types is com- 
posed of lead, tin, and antimony. The best metal is, however, imperfect, as 
it is continually deteriorating while in a molten state by the evaporation of 
the most important element, antimony, which action is taking place during 
the whole time of the manufacture. In order to prevent this change of 
quality, Mr. Besley proposes the addition of nickel, copper, metallic cobalt, 
and bismuth, —the nickel and cobalt being the materials used to give hard- 
ness, and the copper being the medium by which these substances are 
caused to unite with the antimony of the type-metal; while by the introduc- 
tion of bismuth, which has the well-known property of passing instantly 
from fusion to fixity, the setting of the alloy is expedited. 


SCHEUTZ’S CALCULATING MACHINE. 


Specimens of Tables, Calculated, Stereomoulded, and Printed by Machinery 
(Longman & Co.), is the title of a little publication, issued in London dur- 
ing the past year. Adopting this title as a caption, the London Atheneum 
publishes the following article : 

Some eight years ago, we gave an account of the matter at issue between 
the government and Mr. Babbage, as to the first of the calculating machines 
invented by the latter. At that time the patience, energy, and ingenuity of 
two unknown Swedes, George and Edward Scheutz, father and son, had 
matured a plan of execution which has at last, by the assistance of the Swed- 
ish government, actually produced results. Taking Mr. Babbage’s ideas, 
as explained by Dr. Lardner in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1834, they 
have made their own details, and by the work of their own heads and hands, 
have produced the machine, from which the tables before us are calculated, 
and stereoglyphed. 

A large part of the scientific world looks very coldly on this inyention. 
They say it is of no use: that tables could be constructed for a small part of 
the money, as many and as good as the machine would ever make. Dr. 
Young thought, we believe, that a portion of what was to be spent on Mr. 
Babbage’s machine, invested in the funds, would keep computers enough at 
work to supply the place of the machine. This argument was true enough, 
after a sort. Mr. Weller, senior, made use of the very same argument in a 
manner which might have stopped railroads, if it had been duly weighed at 
the time when Stephenson was laughed at for talking of ten miles an hour, 
and was obliged to keep sixty miles an hour to himself. What rate could I 
keep a coach at, said the veteran whip, for £100,000 a mile, paid in advance. 
The event has shown that the argument was wrong: the railroad is what it 
is, and there is much reason to think that the telegraph would never have 
been thought of in our day but for the railroad. On with the work, then 
let every development of thought, and every adaptation of thought, be en- 
couraged and welcomed, even though its ultimate uses— we mean those 
uses which the man of the day can see, — were as distant as gravitation and 
lunar distances from the conic sections of the Platonic school of geometers, 


— a 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 79 


which were ready to hand when wanted. Those who decry the highest stone 
because it supports nothing are fortunate in one point, —they will always 
have something to decry : those who are busy in raising the next stone will 
find them another job at the very instant the old one is finished. Machinery 
will do anything which symbolic calculation will do, whether simply numeri- 
eal or algebraical; and the highest recent developments of algebra seem to 
point to a time when the details of mere calculation must be the work of 
machinery, if final results are to be actually exhibited. 

George Scheutz, the father, took up the subject in 1834, after reading the 
Edinburgh Review above mentioned. He desisted, after proving the prac- 
ticability of the idea by some models. In 1837, Edward, the son, took up 
the plan, and, after a refusal from the government to lend any aid, the 
two completed a machine of small compass in 1840. This was enlarged, the 
model of the printing part was added, and the machine was exhibited to the 
Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1843. On the certificate of this body, the 
projectors sought for orders (we mean commissions to construct machines) 
in various countries, but without success. In 1851, after another inspection 
in the previous year by the Swedish Academy, a new and unsuccessful ap- 
plication was made to the government. A motion for a national recompense 
in the Diet was more successful ; the motion was carried, subject to the con- 
dition that the king, after examination, should find the machine complete and 
successful. But the projectors wanted the recompense to complete the 
machine; and they obtained it on giving security for its return in case of 
failure. Fifteen gentlemen ran the risk for the honor of their country. The 
machine was completed, and performed its work perfectly at the very first 
trials. But the expenditure had far exceeded the recompense awarded ; on 
which, at the suggestion of the king, the Diet added another sum of the 
same amount. This was in August, 1854. The inventors immediately 
brought their machine to England, where it soon excited interest. Mr. 
Gravatt, the civil engineer, took it up, explained it at the Royal Society, and 
at the Paris Exhibition. The machine was again brought to England in 
1856, and the publication of the present tables was resolved on. 

While this was going on, Mr. Rathbone of Albany, at the suggestion of 
Professor B. A. Gould, purchased the machine for £1,000, and presented it 
to the Dudley Observatory of that city. 

Great Britain, in consideration of nearly £20,000 expended on‘an attempt, 
which it would not complete, has the honor of being the ground on which an 
American merchant bought the machine which the Swedish Government had 
enabled two of its subjects to make. The idea of finding a purchaser in 
England seems never to have entered the mind of any one. 

In the construction of the machine, many parts of Mr. Babbage’s details 
have been adopted, and many have been altered. The calculating portion 
of the machine, which appears in the front of the drawing, consists of a series 
of fifteen upright steel axes, passing down the middle of five horizontal rows 
of silver-coated numbering rings, fifteen in each row, each ring being sup- 
ported by, and turning concentrically on its own small brass shelf, having 
within it a hole rather less than the largest diameter of the ring. Round the 


80 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


cylindrical surface of each ring are engraved the ordinary numerals from 0 
to 9, one of which, in each position of the ring, appears in front, so that the 
successive numbers shown in any horizontal row of rings may be read from. 
left to right, as in ordinary writing. ‘The upper row exhibits the number or 
answer resulting from the calculation to fifteen places of figures, the first 
eight of which the machine stereotypes. ‘The numbers seen on the second 
row of rings constitute the first order of differences, also to fifteen places of 
figures, if that number be required ; and the third, fourth, and fifth rows of 
rings, in like manner, exhibit the second, third and fourth orders of differ- 
ences. Any row can be set by hand, so as to present to the eye any number 
expressed according to the decimal scale of notation; such as the number 
987654321056789, the first eight figures of which, if in the uttermost row, 
would, on being calculated by the machine, be immediately stereotyped. But 
by simply changing a ring in each of two of the vertical columns, the machine 
can be made to exhibit and to calculate numbers expressed in the mixed 
senary system of notation, as in that of degrees, minutes, seconds, and deci- 
mals of a second. Thus, for instance, if the result 874324687356402 were 
indicated in the upper row of rings, it would be stereotyped 87 degrees, 43 
minutes, 24:69 seconds. While this process is going on, the argument 
proper to each result is at the same time also stereotyped in its proper place ; 
nothing more being required for that purpose than to set each row of figure 
rings to differences previously calculated from the proper formula, and to place 
a strip of sheet lead on the slide of the printing apparatus ; then, by turning 
the handle (to do which requires no greater power than what is exerted in 
turning that of a small barrel-organ), the whole table required is calculated 
and stereomoulded in the lead. By this expression is meant that the strip of 
lead is made into a beautiful stereotype mould, from which any number of 
sharp stereotype plates can be produced ready for the working of an ordinary 
printing press. At the average rate of working the machine, 120 lines per 
hour of arguments and results are calculated and actually stereotyped, ready 
for the press. It is found on trial that the machine calculates and stereo- 
types, without chance of error, two-and-a-half pages of figures in the same 
time that a skilful compositor would take merely to set up the types for one 
single page. 

Our readers will, of course, understand that the machine is not self-act- 
ing. It does not give logarithms, for example, merely for saying, Good 
machine, we want logarithms. It must be fed both with manual power and 
with calculation. 'The seed must be according to the harvest wanted ; men 
do not grow figs of thistles, even in a calculating machine. But the. return 
is greater than in most harvests; a very little calculation makes the machine 
do an enormous quantity of result by help of barrel-organ exercise. But 
how are errors to be avoided if human fallibility is at the bottom of all? 
It is not a matter of course that errors will be avoided ; but casual errors 
will be avoided. All is right, if the machine is rightly fed; al/ is wrong, if 
it be wrongly fed. Now, error throughout must be detected ; labor and lead 
therefore may be thrown away, but wrong will never be published for right. 

The tables consist of a complete five-figure set of logarithms, with the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. $1 


usual four figures of primitive number ; there are some small specimens of 
other tables. The figures are, as they ought to be, punchy ; the justification, 
as the printers call it, is perfect. The differences are not printed ; the print- 
ing part was not carried far enough for this. ‘ 

Calculation by machinery, with results told by the insentient calculator 
itself, is now an accomplished fact. It does not excite its proper interest, 
because the unfinished attempt of the original inventor has been for many 
years before the world. But the time may come when this first actual suc- 
cess will be quoted as the commencement of a long and singular chain of 
adaptations. 


JONES’ SUMMATOR. 


This is an instrument designed to perform the addition of numbers. It 
consists of a circular card, upon which the numerals from one up to one 
hundred, are printed at the points of intersection of a spiral line with a num- 
ber of radial lines (on the instruments constructed are one hundred of the 
latter), the figures increasing in amount as they approach towards the cen- 
tre of the card. The card is hung by a central pin to and behind a light 
circular plate of wood, which hides all of it except a portion which is visi- 
ble through a horizontal slot, extending from the circumference towards the 
centre. Upon the outer edge of this plate, figures from one to one hun- 
dred are printed in legible characters, the tens, twenties, thirties, etc., being 
connected in groups by strong lines, and printed in dark characters to give 
greater facilities in finding any desired number. Surrounding the plate is a 
ring of wood, which is attached to the card, and moves with it around the 
centre-pin; in its periphery are one hundred indentations, corresponding 
with the number of the radial lines, and with the figures printed around the 
edge of the plate. A’small index slides in the slot of the plate, its motion 
being coincident with that of the spiral line on the card over which it always 
is, approaching to, or receding from the centre, as the card is turned from 
right to left, or vice versa. 

The operation of adding is performed thus: — The index is placed at 
zero by turning the card backwards by means of a crank handle intended 
for that purpose; the indentation over the figure equalling the amount of 
the bottom line of the column to be added is brought by the revolution of 
the ring and card just opposite the slot in the circular plate, at which point 
it is arrested by a stop, against which the finger or pencil used to rotate the 
ring strikes, when the index will have moved towards the centre, and will 
mark the amount of the first line of the column to be added. The amount 
of the next line being taken, and the ring turned, the number shown by the 
indicator will equal the amount of the first and second lines, and so on. To 
those persons who are not expert in adding, and do not care to become so, 
this instrument will no doubt be useful. It is mounted on a near stand, and 
is a much more convenient and rapid way of adding mechanically, than the 
old way of slipping balls upon wires stretched in a frame, and which no 
doubt is familiar to all. 


82 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ON A STANDARD DECIMAL MEASURE OF LENGTH FOR MECHANI- 
CAL ENGINZERING WORK. 


The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, recently 
read before the Manchester (Eng.) Mechanic’s Institution, by Mr. Whit- 
worth. The paper commenced by showing that a general desire is now ex- 
pressed for some simpler method of measuring and computing than has 
hitherto been the rule in mechanics and engineering. The fractional system 
did very well in the old and cumbrous modes pursued by mechanics ; but a 
change to some certain and easy system of measurement and notation was 
now an absolute necessity. A decimal system was that now proposed by 
the author for both measurement and notation, the inch being taken as the 
unit, and divided into thousands. A workman would very soon learn to 
think in tens, hundreds and thousands, instead of the present mode of com- 
puting sizes, thus securing greater safety in all kinds of work which are de- 
pendent on accuracy of size, as the manufacture of guns and warlike in- 
struments ; and much greater accuracy in all descriptions of work. After 
showing other advantages to be derived by the general adoption of a deci- 
mal system of measure in all engineering and mechanicai works and estab- 
lishments, and proposing that the present measure, or rule of eighths, be 
abandoned for a rule in thousandths, the paper concluded by showing, 
from tables exhibited, the nature of the decimal system proposed. Myr. 
Whitworth then showed several metal specimens of external and internal 
gauges and sizes, arranged to a nicety, equal to 1-5,000ths of an inch, on 
the system produced. An interesting discussion followed the reading of 
the paper, in which several gentlemen took part. Some were for adopting 
the plan immediately, others for appointing a committee to investigate the 
matter, or to report upon the best plan of carrying the method into practice. 
It was ultimately moved by Mr. Fairbairn, and carried unanimously, that 
the meeting pledged itself to the scale of one inch, and that it should be 
divided into one thousand parts. 

On the Importance of Introducing a New and Uniform Standard of Micro- 
metric Measurement. —In a paper on the above subject, before the British 
Association, by Prof. Lyons, the author alluded to the great difficulties ex- 
perienced by observers in enumerating, rendering, and even remembering 
the various kinds of measures now in use in these countries and on the con- 
tinent, portions of the English, Irish, and French inch and line, and decimal 
parts of the French millimetre. The high figure in the denominator and 
the number of decimal plans were exceedingly cumbrous. He (Dr. Lyons) 
would propose that some definite micrometric integer should be assumed, 
being a determinate part of unity. He proposed that this measure should 
be denominated a microline. He did not mean definitely to bind himself to 
the adoption of any standard, but would propose provisionally that the one 
ten-thousandth part of the English inch should be assumed and denomi- 
nated the standard microline pro tem. He would, however, have his hearers 
bear in mind the present tendency of scientific men towards a decimal sys- 
tem. For his own part he would prefer the French decimal scale. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 83 


LEONARD’S DYNAMOMETER. 


A new Dynamometer (power measurer) invented by W. B. Leonard, 
Iisq., Secretary of the American Institute, is constructed as follows: A 
square box of cast iron, to the front and back plates of which are attached 
links for the appliance of the machine and the power used, contains at the 
bottom a piece of ordinary clock-work, the object of which is to give a con- 
stant revolving motion to a circular table covered with leather.” Near the 
top of the box, on either side of this revolving table, are stiff spiral springs, 
which are fastened to the front and rear plates of the box. Directly over 
the revolving table is a spindle, the two parts of which slide upon each 
other, like a telescope, as the power applied draws out the spiral springs ; 
and in the centre of this spindle is a brass wheel which revolves at right 
angles with the circular travel of the table. At the extremity of this spin- 
dle is a disc,on which revolving hands mark by proper figures the total 
amount of strain made by the team. Now attach the team to the front link 
and the machine to the rear one of the box. ‘The parts are drawn asunder, 
thus straightening out the spiral springs, pulling the sliding portion of the 
spindle and causing the upper brass wheel to pass off of the centre of the 
revolving table, where, of course, it previously was at rest, and to revolve 
itself by the forward travel of the table, which it touches. As this wheel goes 
round, it turns a pinion wheel at the other end of the spindle, and by an ar- 
rangement of one or two cog-wheels the hands go round the dise, faster or 
slower as more or less power is applied, and a perfectly accurate registry is 
made of the draught of the machine attached. 


EFFECT OF THE DRAINAGE OF THE LAKE OF HAARLEM. 


The value of the land recovered by Holland from the lake of Haarlem, is 
increasing at a rate which insures payment of all the outlay for the drainage 
in a comparatively short time. Good crops of colza and rye have been 
grown, and the potatoes are excellent. ‘Two farms of considerable extent 
are established; two large villages are being built, and the district is trav- 
ersed by two good roads. No ill consequences were experienced from inter- 
mittent fevers, as was dreaded when the surface was first laid bare, and the 
numbers of dead fish had no other effect than to fertilize the soil. No object 
of natural history or of antiquity was discovered. Holland has now two or 
three parishes more than she had four years ago. Leyden and Haarlem dis- 
puted possession of the newly won territory; but the government has de- 
cided that it shall form a district by itself. Amsterdam, relieved from the 
danger once threatened by the meer, is laying on a supply of drinkable 
waiter from the downs or sand-hills along the sea shore. It is worthy of re- 
mark, that the sources in these hills, though copious and of good quality, 
are most of them below the level of the sea. 


DEADENING WALLS AND CEILINGS. 


There is no greater nuisance in modern houses than that of the transmis- 
sion of sound through parti-walls. Any practical, inexpensive, and efficient 


84 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


means of deadening sound will be a great boon. Solid walls and solid floors 
transmit sound in the highest degree. Is there no remedy? ‘The late Mr. 
Cubitt had some trouble at Balmoral with certain floors, and remembered 
that in taking down an old palace fioor (many years before) vast quantities 
of cockle-shells fell out from betwixt the joists. These had been used in 
plugging. The idea was acted upon. Cockles were dredged, and brought ; 
the shells were cleaned, and dried, and used, with beneficial effect. The 
cellular spaces thus produced absorbed sound. Some highly cellular texture 
may be applied to walls, ceilings, and floors, which shall resist fire and ordi- 
nary decay, allow of finish, and yet deaden sound. Who is to invent and 
introduce such materials? They may patent the invention and make a for- 
tune, if they will only abate the existing nuisance, and enable us to have 
solid parti-walls and fire-proof floors without being compelled to hear what 
is going on up stairs and in the next house. — The Builder. 


ON TEE CREMATION OF THE DEAD. 


An association of gentlemen has been recently formed in London, who 
have pledged themselves: to sustain the practice of what quaint Sir Thomas 
Brown aptly called ‘‘ Hydriotaphia, or Urnburial.” These gentlemen set 
forth that they have been moved to take this singular step by many con- 
siderations, of which the most creditable and the most forcible certainly are 
those which are derived from a reference to the effect upon the public health 
of the common practice of inhumation. 

They allege that the gases which are evolved in the process of decompo- 
sition from any considerable “ necropolis,” or city of the dead, must inevita- 
bly affect injuriously the atmosphere of the surrounding region; and since 
it is not possible that any large proportion of the dead of a great and crowded 
metropolis should be interred at a great distance from the place of their 
residence in life—the expense of the transport, and the inconvenience 
thereby entailed upon surviving relatives, making such transport very bur- 
densome to the mass of the middle classes even, and quite out of the ques- 
tion for the preponderating multitudes of the poor — they insist upon the 
imperative necessity of such a general change in our manner of dealing 
with the dead, as shall adequately protect the living. 

That our strong feeling in favor of the custom of interment is not founded 
on any intrinsic instincts of human nature is sufficiently established, say the 
friends of cremation, by the oscillations of public opinion in regard to this 
matter through many ages and over many lands; and although we may 
shrink from the mere suggestion of a change in the established funeral cus- 
toms of Christendom, we must remember that our sensibilities are, after all, 
really educated ; and that no consideration of this sort should restrain us at 
least from a calm and quiet investigation of the grounds upon which the ad- 
vocates of a reform in the mode of funeral obsequies advance their startling 
propositions in favor of consuming in the purifying flames, and preserving 
in sacred vessels, those precious remains of the loved and lost, which we now 
consign to the gradual destruction of nature’s chemistry. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 85 


ART IN NATURE. 


The old corals abound in ornamental patterns, which man, unaware of 
their existence at the time, devised long after for himself. In an article on 
calico printing, which forms part of a recent history of Lancashire, there 
are a few of the patterns introduced, backed by the recommendation that 
they were the most successful ever tried. Of one of these, known as “ Lane’s 
Net,” there sold a greater number of pieces than of any other pattern ever 
brought into market. It led to many imitations; and one of the most 
popular of these answers line for line, save that it is more stiff and rectilinear, 
to the pattern in a recently-discovered Old Red Sandstone coral, the Smithia 
Pengellyi. The beautifully-arranged lines which so smit the dames of Eng- 
land, that each had to provide herself with a gown of the fabric which they 
adorned, had been stamped amid the rocks eons of ages before. And it must 
not be forgotten, that all these forms and shades of beauty which once filled 
all nature, but of which only a few fragments, or a few faded tints, sur- 
vive, were created, not to gratify man’s love of the zsthetic, seeing that man 
had no existence until long after they had disappeared, but in mect har- 
mony with the tastes and faculties of the Divine Worker, who had, in His 
wisdom, produced them all. — Hugh Miller’s Testimony of the Rocks. 


EXTINGUISHING FIRES ON SHIPBOARD. 


Dr. James Patton, of Paisley, Scotland, has proposed a plan for extin- 
guishing fires on shipboard, by filling the vessel with carbonic acid gas, as 
soon as the crew and passengers are removed upon deck. ‘This can be ac- 
complished, by placing in some convenient part or parts of the vessel, a tank 
or tanks, containing super-carbonate of soda, or some other carbonate, and 
in the interior thereof a glass vessel, containing a due proportion of sulphuric 
or other acid for displacing the gas. The tank should communicate with the 
deck by an opening through which an iron rod could be passed, and having 
openings in the side through which the gas might escape into the hold of the 
vessel, the upper opening being closed as soon as the glass is broken, so that 
the gas might be diffused below. Upon any alarm of fire, all being mustered 
upon deck, the carboy in the interior of the carbonate might then be broken 
by the iron rod; the vessel,would fill in a few minutes with fixed air, ex- 
tinguishing the fire at the same time, so that there would not be the smallest 
danger unless it had penetrated the deck previously. The above may be 
verified, by taking an air-tight deal box, a tumbler, or any convenient air- 
tight vessel, placing a quantity of super-carbonate of soda at the bottom, 
with a tube reaching to the top, then, filling the vessel with cotton, or other 
combustible, ignite, and while combustion is going on, pour a little vinegar 
or other acid in the tube upon the soda; the fire will instantly be extin- 
guished, even though there is no covering over the vessel! to retain the gas. 


EXPERIMENTS IN AEROSTATION. 


At arecent meeting of the French Academy, Marshal Vaillant gave an 
account of some trials made at Vincennes in the spring of 1855, under the 


8 - 


86 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


direction of the engincer corps of the French army, to ascertain, if it were 
possible, to maintain a balloon five or six hundred metres above a fortified 
town, and, if so, to cause incendiary or fulminating balls to fall. Nothing 
was successful, and the commission, after the expenditure of much money, 
gave up the project. 


FORMATION OF THE CHINESE CONCENTRIC IVORY BALLS. 


The Rey. W. C. Milne, in his recent work on China, thus explains the 
mystery of curved concentric ivory balls, — ten, twelve, or more, cut out, one 
within the other: 

It has long puzzled people how so intricate a piece of workmanship is 
fabricated. It has been conjectured, that originally they are balls cut into 
halves, so strongly and nicely gummed or cemented together that it is 
impossible to detect the junction. And Ihave seen it deliberately stated, 
that attempts have been made by some to dissolve the union by soaking and 
boiling a concentric ball in oil, —of course, to no purpose. The plain solu- 
tion, obtained by myself from more than one native artist, is the following: 
A piece of ivory, made perfectly round, has several conical holes worked 
into it, so that their several apices meet at the centre of the globular mass. 
The workman then commences to detach the innermost sphere of all. This 
is done by inserting a tool into each hole, with a point bent and very sharp. 
That instrument is so arranged as to cut away or scrape the ivory through 
each hole, at equi-distances from the surface. The implement works away 
at the bottom of each conical hole successively, until the incisions meet. In 
this way the innermost ball is separated; and to smooth, carve, and orna- 
ment it, its various faces are, one after the other, brought opposite one of 
the largest holes. The other balls, larger as they near the outer surface, are 
each cut, wrought and polished precisely in the same manner. - The outer- 
most ball ef course is done last of all. As for the utensils in this operation, 
the size of the shaft of the tool, as well as of the bend at its point, depends on 
the depth of each successive ball from the surface. Such is their mode of 
carving one of the most delicate and labyrinthic specimens of workman- 
ship to be found in China or elsewhere. These “wheels within wheels” are 
intended chiefly for sale to foreigners; and numerous specimens annually 
are sent to England and America. . 


EXPERIMENTS ON IRON TARGETS. 


Some experiments have been made at Woolwich, England, to test the 
power of resistance of timber lined with four-inch iron plates; the combined 
materials being of the same thickness as the immense floating batteries con- 
structed during the late war; and also to test the durability and quality of 
iron plates manufactured by rolling, as compared with iron turned out by 
the hammer. The target was an immense construction of timber, lined 
with four-inch plates of iron, of both descriptions, and the total weight was 
thirty tons. This target was placed on a foundation constructed for the pur- 
pose, and twenty-four rounds of 68-pounders were fired, with the following 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 87 


results :— The first fourteen rounds were fired at a distance of six hundred 
yards, and, after the first few rounds, the timber work gave way in several 
directions. The last ten rounds were fired at a distance of four hundred 
vards, and the work of destruction commenced was thus consummated. The 
timber work of the target was completely broken and splintered, and the 
plates of iron made by the rolling process were cut up and split, having ap- 
parently but little adhesion. The iron plates which had been made by the 
old process resisted the solid wrought iron shot much more successfully, and 
it was apparent that these plates possessed more adhesive power than the 
rolled plates. Such was the tremendous force of the cannonade that the 
immense target was forced by the concussion several feet from the founda- 
tion or box on which it was placed. The last shot fired was the most effec- 
tive. This shot went completely through the target, timber-work and iron 
included. It was the subject of remark by several practical men that the 
principle of combining timber with iron plates, was, no doubt, the best that 
could be at present adopted; but it was evident from these experiments that 
such plates must be improved upon before they could resist the concussion 
of repeated discharges of heavy shot. 


_ON THE STRENGTH OF IRON ORDNANCE. 


During the past year, some interesting trials of the strength of heavy 
ordnance, manufactured by Alger, of Boston, for the United States Navy, 
have been made under the direction of the Department. One of a number 
of nine-inch calibre iron guns was selected as a sample for undergoing the 
test required per contract, namely, that they should endure one thousand 
rounds, of ten pounds of powder, and a projectile of seventy-two pounds. 

The result of the trial was, that the gun in question stood 1,500 rounds 
with so slight an effect that it would probably endure another thousand, and, 
as the rest of the lot were made of the same iron, and under precisely the 
same circumstances, they are presumed to be of the same character. 


ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIRTY-SIX-INCH MORTARS. 


At the last meeting of the British Association, Mr. R. Mallett presented a 
communication on the above subject. The largest shells, said Mr. M., with 
few exceptions, used during and up to the late war, were thirteen-inch shells, 
of about 180 or 200 pounds weight, and holding about nine pounds of 
powder. ‘The depth to which this shell would sink in compacted earth was 
about thirteen feet, but it was incapable of piercing masonry beyond 
eighteen or twenty inches, except by repeated shots, and was fired at a range 
of 4,700 yards. It had occurred to him.as very desirable that 2 shell should 
be thrown at much greater range with greatly increased power of demolition 
and penetration; and he came to the conclusion that a shell of less than 
three feet in diameter would not answer the purpose, and he found that such 
a shell, holding five hundred pounds of powder, would become not so much 
an instrument by which human life would be taken, as a mine or series of 
mines, transferred into fortifications, piercing compacted earth to a depth of 
fifteen feet, and demolishing solid masonry at many times the distance at 


88 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


which the small could do, Mr. Mallett then, at considerable length, ex- 
plained the difficulties which he had encountered and overcome in the con- 
-struction of the mortars he had completed, capable of firing the above shells, 
and the capabilities of the latter. It was necessary that a mortar large 
enough to project such a shell should be constructed in separate pieces, 
because so large an instrument could not be forged without sustaining flaws 
in the difficult process of cooling. In his researches and consideration of the 
subject, he was greatly indebted to Dr. Harte for the able manner in which, 
with his profound mathematical abilities, he had aided him. He had also 
considered the general question cf the application of wrought iron to artil- 
lery, and came to a conclusion which would show the improvement as re- 
gards the money part of the question. From a table before the Section on 
the board, the value of guns of equal weight was mentioned, in bronze, 
wrought or cast iron, and German steel. A gun of say one ton in cast iron 
would cost £1; in bronze, £10; in steel, £2; and wrought iron but £15. 
A gun of wrought iron would be but one fifth the weight of a bronze gun, 
and therefore about four fifths of its weight was uselessly put upon the horses 
employed to draw it. Other elements, such as wear and tear, and cost of 
transport also remained to be considered. Capt. Blakeley observed, that 
after the explanations of Mr. Mallett, it would be unnecessary to spend time 
in advocating the utility of monster guns. The objection to them so often 
mentioned was their unwieldiness, but those who had witnessed the applica- 
tions of Mr. Armstrong of water-power would perceive that they could 
easily be moved by that means. ‘The difficulty of constructing large guns 
on account of the greatly-increased strain to which they were subjected 
was also an objection; but it was shown that those difficulties could be 
overcome. His (Capt. Blakeley’s) plan of constructing large guns differed 
very slightly from that of Mr. Mallett. The interior of the gun was made 
of cast.iron, because of its small cost, and placed on it were rings of wrought 
iron, at a white heat, hammered together. A nine-pounder constructed on 
this principle had been tested at Woolwich, and 158 rounds were fired, the 
gun being loaded to the muzzle, and those who conducted the experiment 
declared that it was the strongest gun they had ever witnessed. Mr. Fair- 
bairn had never seen a more perfect piece of workmanship than Mr. Mallett’s 
very ingenious gun, and it only remained to prove, by actual experiment, 
whether it would succeed. He was of opinion, after much consideration of 
the subject, that cast iron of the best quality was the most suitable material 
for the construction of guns. Mr. Rennie attributed the circumstance that 
the Russian guns were enabled to fire two or three thousand proof rounds to 
the fact that they used superior metal in the construction of their cannon. 
He was inclined to think that cast iron was better than wrought iron, 
owing to the great difficulty in the forging of wrought iron. 


ON THE INTRODUCTION OF HEAVY ORDNANCE INTO THE UNITED 
STATES NAVY. 


The new steam-frigates recently added to the United States Navy have 
been armed with the new ordnance introduced by Commander Dahlgren, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 89 


and consists of nine, ten, and eleven inch shell-guns, of great weight and 
range. The introduction of these shell-guns to the exclusion of shot, says 
the Secretary of the Navy, in his last report, was by no means inconsiderately 
or hastily made. It was suggested by Commander Dahlgren, in 1850, that 
he could “ exercise a greater amount of ordnance power witha given weight of 
metal, and with more safety to those who managed the gun, than any other 
piece then known of like weight.” 

Commodore Warrington, then at the head of the Bureau of Ordnance, 
ordered the gun proposed. . 

The proving and testing continued during the years 1852, 1853 and 1854. 
The points of endurance and accuracy were specially examined. The first 
gun stood five hundred rounds with shell and five hundred with shot, with- 
out bursting, and subsequently other guns were proved to the extreme, and 
endured 1,600 and 1,700 rounds without bursting. Shells have been adopted 
because they are deemed preferable, not because of any apprehension that 
shot cannot be used in these guns with perfect security, that point being set- 
tled by actual experiment. This fact is said to be attributable to the circum- 
stance of there being thrown into the breech a very considerable additional 
weight of metal. If, therefore, it is at any time contemplated to attack the 
solid masonry of fortifications several feet in thickness, solid shot can be 
used, although recent developments in the late European wars will hardly 
encourage such assaults to be often undertaken. 

During the past year the sloop-of-war Plymouth, under the charge of Com. 
Dahlgren, was ordered to cruise at sca, with a view of testing the efficiency 
and working of the new ordnance. The battery of the sloop consisted of one 
pivot-gun, and several nine-inch guns. A recent report, submitted by Com. 
Dahlgren, states, that when the ship has no inclination, the nine-inch guns 
can be fired as fast as 32-pounders, but when the deck is inclined, the work- 
ing of the guns is much retarded; still, even at the inclination of eighteen 
degrees, a well-drilled crew was able to discharge shells at intervals of sixty- 
five seconds, and at an angle of five degrees in thirty-five seconds. When 
the vessel was on an even keel, the large eleven-inch pivot gun could not be 
fired so rapidly as the nine-inch cannon; but it was worked more rapidly 
when the deck of the vessel was inclined seven or eight degrees. At this 
angle, seventeen shells were discharged in the same time as thirteen from 
the nine-inch guns. As a pivot gun, it was found as manageable as a com- 
mon sixty-four pounder ; and no difficulty was experienced in making such 
heavy ordnance secure in the most stormy weather. 

It is not stated how far these guns carry. The target was placed only at 
1,000 yards distance, but they can, undoubtedly, send shells much further. 
The large eleven-inch gun weighs, with its carriage, no less than twelve and 
a half tons. 


ON THE MANUFACTURE OF SHELLS (BOMBS). 


In 1854 the demand for the ordinary cast-iron shells in England having 
been extremely urgent, many of the more eligible founderies of the kingdom 
engaged in their manufacture; still, from numerous difficulties which are 


835 


90 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


almost invariably experienced by a new maker in producing shells of the 
required exactness, there was considerable delay and much disappointment 
experienced, both by the government and the contractors. 

A new foundery was therefore built by government at Woolwich, and fur- 
nished with a set of apparatus capable of delivering two hundred tons of 
shot and shells daily, if such should ever be required. It is provided with 
fifty horse-power to work the machinery, eight large cupolas, and every fa- 
cility for carrying on the shot and shell manufacture economically. The 
fuel and iron pass in at one side of the establishment; the moulds are con- 
veyed by railway from the moulding area to the vicinity of the cupolas for 
the reception of the liquid metal, then, without having been removed from 
the carriage, they are conveyed onwards to the breaking up and cleaning de- 
partment ; the shells are put into the cleaning machine, and the moulding 
boxes with the core spindles undergo a rigid examination before being re- 
turned to the moulding area. The sand also has to be broken up, remixed, 
and sifted by machinery before it is returned to the moulders. The shells 
roll on to the bushing machines, after which, by their own gravity, they will 
roll along a suitable rail across the arsenal, out into the river by means of a 
long tube, and into the hold of a vessel for transportation. 

In one day of twenty-four hours, during the late war, upwards of 10,400 
shells passed through the machinery, a feat which probably could not have 
been accomplished in any other workshop in the world. 

Towards the close of 1854, an urgent demand was made from the Crimea 
for wrought iron shells, an article of peculiar shape, not unlike an immense 
champagne bottle, which it was found impossible to get by contract in sufii- 
cient time and quantity to meet the demand. In this emergency, a factory 
capable of producing one hundred of these shells daily was erected; it 
covers 30,000 square feet, contains four steam engines, seven steam ham- 
mers, and upwards of forty machines of various descriptions, many of them 
original and specially adapted to this manufacture. 

These shells are made out of a single plate or slab of iron into an article 
resembling a bottle in form, with six or seven heatings; a remarkable ex- 
ample of what well organized arrangements will accomplish. ‘The shells, 
having to be of one uniform weight, are turned in a lathe, both inside and 
externally. The lathe-spindle, however, is a hollow trunk, which holds a 
shell at both ends, and each shell is acted upon by a dozen or more cutting 
tools simultaneously on both sides, and in opposite directions ; thus the whole 
apparatus is thrown into a condition of equilibrium, and relieved of the in- 
ordinate amount of friction which would otherwise exist, and the time re- 
quired is reduced in proportion. 


IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING CARTRIDGES. 


The following is a description of a new method of making cartridges, re- 
cently introduced into the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, England : — 

Hitherto small arm cartridges have been made up with several pieces of 
paper that were rolled into the proper form, to hold the bullet and powder, 
an arrangement which has been found liable to some important objections. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. | 91 


A few years ago a method of making seamless sugar bags direct from the 
pulp, and without the intermediate stage of sheet paper having been invented, 
an inquiry was made in regard to its applicability for cartridges, and it 
having appeared, after careful examination, to offer several important ad- 
vantages, more especially with respect to strength with a given quantity of 
paper, economy, and still more in regard to accuracy of dimensions, that 
system has, accordingly been introduced. 

The special apparatus required for the small-arm seamless cartridge bag 
consists of a number of small perforated moulds, of the same form as the 
cartridge bag, which are clustered together on the end of a flexible pipe, in 
which a vacuum is kept up by means of an air pump. Lach finger in this 
group of moulds is covered with a worsted slip cover, or mitten, and the 
whole cluster is then dipped into a cistern containing the liquid pulp, which 
in an instant is drawn upon them through the agency of the internal vacuum, 
combined with the external pressure of the atmosphere. The worsted mit- 
tens, with their paper covering, are then placed on driers of the exact di- 
mensions, that are heated by steam, the whole operation of forming and 
drying occupying about a quarter of an hour. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GUNPOWDER. 


A patented improvement, by Henry Hodges, of New York, consists in 
mixing the ingredients or component parts of gunpowder (namely, charcoal, 
saltpetre and sulphur) in their usual proportions in the ordinary way, and 
in then putting them into a suitable pot or vessel, made of any description 
of metal or earthenware, into which vessel sufficient steam is admitted by 
any suitable apparatus to damp the composition, dissolve the saltpetre, and 
soften the sulphur. By these means the saltpetre is more intimately blended 
with the other ingredients than by ordinary processes of manufacture. 
During this process the composition should be kept well stirred up, to ex- 
pose it as much as possible to the action of the steam, and this may be com 
tinued until the whole of the saltpetre is dissolved, when it is taken out, and 
when sufliciently dry is ground in the usual way. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN POLISHING AND GRINDING PLATE GLASS. 


The New York Tribune furnishes the following description of a new 
method of polishing and grinding plate glass, recently put in operation by 
a new company, in New York City. 

The apparatus in question is the invention of Mr. Brougton, improved 
by Mr. P. Burgess. The grinder is a horizontal circular plate of cast-iron, 
ten feet in diameter, and two inches thick. The upper surface is planed, 
and has ribs beneath to give it strength. This iarge plate is keyed on the 
end of a vertical shaft, which is made to revolve at a velocity of forty-five 
revolutions a minute. Two horse power is all that is required. The plate 
of glass to be ground is placed upon the circular table just described; half- 
way between the centre and the circumference an adjustable frame of the 
proper weight is placed upon it so as to confine the edges and prevent the 


92 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


plate from slipping away. This frame carries in its centre a round rod, 
standing vertically, which is kept in its place by two bars fastencd to the 
frame of the machine. This arrangement prevents the frame from moving 
away, but does not prevent it from revolving. There is room on a circular 
table for four glass plates, disposed in a similar manner, at a distance from 
the centre. A trough full of sand, with an aperture in the bottom propor- 
tional to the quantity of sand required, is suspended above. The machine 
is put in operation by making the ten feet table revolve. The frames above 
being held in their place, the glass they carry is rubbed by the table, and 
the velocity being greater at the circumference of the table than near the 
centre, these frames themselves begin to revolve in a contrary direction. 
This motion, which is a result of the first, has the advantage of regulating 
the friction by successively bringing every point of the glass near the centre, 
where the friction is least, and near the circumference where it is greatest. 

The polishing machine is nearly similar to the grinding machines. The 
only difference is that its upper surface is formed of wooden rings covered 
with felt, which are screwed upon the cast-iron table, and that these circular 
rings are eccentric to the table, and leave between them parallel circular 
ridges of nearly the same breadth as the wooden rings. The glass plates 
are placed upon this machine as upon the other, in exactly the same manner, 
but instead of sand falling on it from a box, oxide of iron or rouge, 
thoroughly mixed with water, is used, and is applied to the felt with a 
brush. 

The polishing and grinding of plate glass has, heretofore, been effected by 
manual labor.. By the above described apparatus, a result formerly requir- 
ing ten hours of labor, is said to be accomplished in one. 


JOPLING’S IMPROVED WATER METRE. 


At a recent meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Mr. T. T. Jop- 
ling described a metre of his own invention constructed on the piston princi- 
ple, which appeared to meet the objections hitherto made to that class of 
metre. It consisted of two measuring cylinders, set parallel to each other, 
with working pistons, — the rods of which projected out of the cylinders in 
opposite directions, carrying at their extremities slide valve frames, for sup- 
porting and operating on the slide valves that governed the ports of the 
cylinders. These measuring cylinders were contained in a cast-iron case or- 
tank, into which the water to be measured entered under a certain pressure. 
The water thence passed into the cylinders, from which, after having acted 
upon one or other of the pistons, it made its escape. Through the agency 
of suitable counting apparatus connected with one of the piston rods, the 
reciprocating movements of the piston were counted, and thus the quantity 
of water passed through the metre, ina given time, was indicated. The 
measuring chambers were made somewhat like ordinary steam engine cylin- 
ders, as respected the inlet and outlet ports ; but in one of the cylinders the 
direction of the inlet ports was inverted, in order that the right hand port might 
pass the water to the left hand end of the cylinder, and the left hand port to 
the right hand end. By this means the two pistons were enabled to follow 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 93 


each other in the same direction, and to maintain a continuous stream of 
water, without the use of cranks. The slide valves were pressed up against 
the ports of the cylinder, by means of springs, in order to retain them in 
contact with the faces when the metre was at rest. They were free to re- 
main stationary during the greater portion of the progress of the pistons ; but 
just as the piston of one cylinder was completing its stroke, one of a pair of 
tappets on the valve frame, carried by the piston rod of that cylinder, would 
strike against the valve which that valve frame carried, and altered its posi- 
tion over the ports of the other cylinder, whereby the direction of the flow 
of water into that measuring cylinder was reversed. For transmitting the 
reciprocating motion of the piston to the index, one of the valve frames was 
furnished at the back with two ribs, or feathers set parallel to each other, 
but one in advance of the other. These feathers acted as teeth, and in slid- 
ing backwards and forwards with the piston rod, they entered alternately 
the teeth of an escape-wheel, and so drove it round tooth by tooth. The 
arbor of this wheel led through the water case to the counting apparatus ; 
and thus motion was communicated directly to it, without the aid of pawls 
and ratchet-wheels. : 

By this arrangement the metre became a very simple and inexpensive 
machine, not liable to derangement ; or if injured, it was easily repaired, as 
the only moving parts were the two valves and two pistons. There was an 
entire absence of concussion ; the pressure of the head was preserved, and 
being similar within and without the cylinder, there was no friction upon 
the pistons; and the water-tight external case or chamber served as a de- 
posit for sand or other extraneous matter. 


NEW SYSTEM OF NATURE PRINTING. 


The following communication on the above subject has been recently pre- 
sented to the London Society of Arts by Mr. C. Dresser. 

The art of nature printing has been defined as “a method of producing 
impressions of plants and other natural objects in a manner so truthful that 
only a close inspection reveals the fact of their being copies;” but this is 
rather the result of its greatest achievement — to us it merely implies print- 
ing from nature, and in this light it will now be regarded. 

As this printing from nature, or “ nature printing,” is only in one sense 
new, its history may prove interesting and useful, as this, and this alone, can 
enable us to understand to what extent it is new, and the nature of any sup- 
posed improvements or alterations in the art which may be offered. As far 
back as about 250 years a simple mode of producing impressions of plants 
upon paper was employed by naturalists. The plant, after being dried, was 
held over the smoke of a candle or oil-lamp, when it became blackened by 
a deposit of soot, after which it was placed between two sheets of paper and 
rubbed with a smoothing-bone, which caused the soot to leaye the promi- 
nences of the leaf and adhere to the paper. In this way an impression of the 
plant was produced. This method of procurring impressions was employed 
as early as the year A.D. 1650, 


94 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


In 1707 Linneus alludes to impressions taken by Hessel, from nature, 
who, at a later period, carried this art out to a considerable extent. The 
leaf or vegetable subject was prepared by being dabbed with printer’s ink or 
lamp-black, after which it was placed between two sheets of paper, and sub- 
jected to flat pressure. Coloring the impressions by hand was introduced 
about this time, but not successfully. 

Hitherto all the modes of producing impressions of plants have been sim- 
ilar, all involving a preparation of the botanical subject with a black pig- 
ment, and the application of pressure to procure the transfer. No attempt 
was made to multiply the impressions produced, a new vegetable subject be- 
ing used for every impression or nearly so. 

In 1833 nature printing again appeared, but it amounted to a new dis- 
covery. : 

The process was the discovery of Peter Kyhl, a Danish goldsmith. The 
vegetable subject, after being thoroughly dried, was placed between a plate 
of polished steel and a thoroughly heated lead-plate, which were united and 
passed between steel rollers, by which operation the plant became pressed 
into the lead, thus producing in this soft metal a beautiful concave image of 
itself. 

The next step was the proposal of Professor Leydolt, in 1849, viz., that 
of printing from agates in such a manner as to represent themselves in a 
truthful manner. The agate is exposed to the action of fluoric acid, the re- 
sult of which is, certain of the concentric scales are decomposed, while others 
remain unaltered ; after this the surface is well washed with dilute hydro- 
chloric acid and dried, then carefully blackened with printer’s ink. A piece 
of paper being placed upon the prepared stone and rubbed with a burnisher, 
an impression was produced, the black parts being represented white, and the 
white black. This is now overcome by the surfaces being reversed : that is, 
the concave surface made convex, and the convex concave, which is effected 
by casting. 

Dr. Ferguson Branson, in 1851, puoi the application of the electro- 
type, which has since proved ice to be an essential feature in this art. In 
1852, he again made experiments. The mode he adopted was that of taking 
impressions upon Britannia metal, with a view of transfering them to stone, 
and after printing in neutral tint, to color such ae aah an by hand. This, 
however, failed to produce any practical results. 

The next step was taken in the imperial printing office of Vienna, in 1851, 
or early in 1852. The first experiment made there appears to have feck 
casting with gutta-percha, as Dr. Branson had done, but as this material did 
not altogether answer, Andrew Worring proposed the substitution of soft 
lead, which he used as Kyhl had formiy done ; the specimens operated upon 
being lace. Professor Haidinger proposed the application of the process to 
‘plants, which suggestion Worring gladly availed himself of. After he had 
prepared the moulds, in the manner just described, he, by the agency of the 
electrotype, produced plates prepared for the printing-press. ‘This process 
was at once applied to practical purposes, and several botanical works have 
already been illustrated by his agency. This process was first patented in 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 95 


Austria in the year 1853, and since in England by Messrs. Bradbury and 
Evans. 

There is one other form of nature printing, viz., that of Felix Abate, of 
Naples, for producing representations of the grain of wood as exhibited by 
sections. This process depends in a great measure upon heat. 

We have now noticed four distinct forms of nature printing ; the first be- 
ing that in which the object was prepared by being blackened ; the second, 
the impressing of vegetable objects into soft metals; the third, the prepara- 
tion of minerals, so as to-render them capable of producing images of them- 
selves; and the fourth, the preparation of wood, so as to render it capable of 
yielding impressions which are its true image; these are distinct varie- 
ties. 

Mr. Henry Bradbury states that we are indebted to Kniphof for the ap- 
plicaticn of the process in its rude state; to Khyl for having first made use 
of steel rollers; to Branson for the first suggestion of the electrotype; to 
Leydolt for the remarkable results he obtained in the representation of flat 
objects of mineralogy ; to Haidinger for having promptly suggested the im- 
pression of a plant into a plate of metal at the very time the modus operandi 
had been provided ; to Abate for its application to the representation of the 
different sorts of ornamental woods on paper, &c.; and to Worring for his 
practical services in carrying out the plans of Leydolt and Haidinger. In 
this statement he supposes each man to have been acquainted with the works 
of those who had gone before him; but it is improbable that this was the 
case. 3 

Mr. Bradbury states that if anything but a thoroughly dried vegetable 
specimen be placed between the plates of soft lead and steel, it will be spread 
in all directions and distorted to an unlimited extent, without leaving any 
impression in the soft metal, save a most undesirable one ; therefore, the use 
of thoroughly dried specimens, and those only, is a necessity of the process. 
To this drying there is this objection —that the texture is frequently des- 
troyed. Another objection is, that the necessary pressure frequently shatters 
the specimen. 

We shall now proceed to notice a new process of “ nature printing,” in 
that of using natural objects, leaves, or flowers as a printing surface, and 
printing with them on a lithographic stone, or metallic plate or cylinder, 
and after subjecting them to the usual processes for rendering them fit for 
printing, taking impressions in the usual ways. 

The precise mode of procedure is as follows : — 

Ist. The lithographic process. ‘‘ We take a leaf, for example, and care- 
fully dab it with lithographic ink. To enable us to coat the leaf evenly 
with ink, a small quantity of the latter is placed on a piece of damp writing 
paper, which rests upon several sheets of damp paper or cloth, under which 
is situated a warm metallic disc. The ink is spread thinly over the sheet 
of writing paper, and the leaf to be reproduced is placed upon it. The leaf 
is dabbed with the ink dabber, the latter being renewed with ink from the 
surrounding paper. The leaf is placed with the prepared side downwards, 
on a lithographic stone which has been previously warmed. <A sheet of 


96 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


paper is then laid over the leaf, and rubbed with a soft pad, which presses 
the leaf in contact with the stone, and makes the impression. The stone 
is now subjected to the usual lithographic processes, as if it were a draw- 
ing. 

2d. The metallic plate process, printing from a raised metal surface like a 
wood-cut or type. ‘ We take a leaf and prepare it in the manner above de- 
scribed, substituting, however, for the lithographic ink, a composition made 
by melting together about equal quantities of, ‘etching ground,’ ‘common 
tallow,’ or ‘ balsam of Judea,’ and ‘sweet oil,’ and for the sheet of writing 
paper a porcelain or metallic plate, which plate is placed over warm watei. 
The leaf is now laid upon the metallic plate. A piece of paper is placed 
over the leaf and rubbed as before. Upon removing the paper and leaf, a 
true impression of the latter is made upon the plate, and all that remains to 
be done is to remove the metallic ground surrounding the impression and 
intervening between its parts, which is accomplished by the well-known 
etching processes as that of employing dilute acids, or by the agency of gal- 
vanism, the latter being preferable. The plate is now engraved, and a true 
convex image of the leaf is produced. The plate may then be printed from 
as if it were type or a wood engraving.” 

3d. The ordinary copper plate or cylinder process, the engraving being con- 
cave. ‘‘ We take a metallic plate, and thinly coat it with ‘etching ground.” 
The leaf is prepared by being dabbed with oil paint, the same as that used 
by artists, which has been spread over a sheet of paper. ‘The leaf is placed 
upon the etching ground, and a piece of paper laid over it, which is rubbed 
as before. We now remove the paper, and in about one minute the leaf 
also. Now, where the oil paint has touched the ‘ etching ground,’ the latter 
is dissolved, which is at once carefully wiped off with a soft rag, the copper 
now appearing through where the ground is removed. The plate is now 
washed with soap and water to remove all remaining grease, and then sub- 
jected to the usual etching processes. In this case the image of the leaf is 
concave, and is printed off by the usual copper-plate printing process. 
When rollers or cylinders are employed instead of plates, the process is 
similar.” 

The ordinary mode of etching by acids does not answer, as before the 
ground is eaten away sufficiently to enable the convex figure of the leaf to 
be printed from, the finer parts are destroyed by the lateral action of the 
acid, By the electrical etching, however, the results obtained are highly sat- 
isfactory. The results from endeavoring to eat off, by the agency of oils, 
“etching-ground,” from a plate which had been covered with this substance, 
the image being concave, are at present uncertain. This method of produc- 
ing similar results seems, however, to bid fair for success, — viz., that of 
taking the impression of the vegetable object in grease upon a steel -plate, 
and etching it, not very deeply, by electricity, then pressing this etching into 
soft copper (as is done in the preparation of cylinders for calico printers), 
after which the etching on the copper plate or cylinder is deepened by the 
ordinary re-etching process. 

A word must be said upon the cost of the process, as this necessarily 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 97 


influences the commercial value of all discoveries. Respecting the litho- 
graphic method, the whole expense may be said to be that of printing off 
the impressions, as the cost of materials for one transfer of a leaf on to the 
stone is less than one half-penny, and the time necessary for producing the 
original figure on the stone is a few minutes. Both the other modes are 
about as speedy, with the exception of the etching, which, occupying rather 
more time, hence involves a little more labor and expense, which is, how- 
ever, more than compensated for in the process of printing from raised cop- 
per figures, as the expense of printing off impressions is in this case ex- 
tremely small, owing to the durability of the blocks employed, the most 
expensive form of the process must be below that of the process at present 
employed. 


ON AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING PRINTING SURFACES. 


This invention, by M. M. Chevalier and O. Sulivan, of Paris, has for its 
object to obtain printing surfaces as a substitute for lithography and other 
similar methods of printing, the use of which, besides being much cheaper 
than lithographic printing, offers this advantage, that a design consisting of 
a number of different colors can be printed at one and the same fime ; while 
in ordinary printing each color has to be worked off separately, and entails 
a great amount of labor. 

In carrying out the invention, the patentees take any suitable permeable 
substance or fabric, such as linen, calico, cloth, canvas, or other woven or 
suitable material, or, it may be, a reticulated metal surface, or metallic plate 
or sheet, perforated with minute holes to impart the required degree of 
permeability, and on this surface they draw or write the desired figures or 
characters in an ink composed of lamp-black, Indian ink, gum, sugar, and 
salt. 

A coating of this ink being applied to the permeable surface in the form. 
of the design or character or characters required, they next coat the permea- 
ble substance, on the side drawn upon, with a thin coating or film of gutta- 
percha or of gelatinous material, covering the drawing as well as the other 
part of the permeable material. When the coating of gutta-percha or other 
gelatinous material is dry, the fabric, or other surface, so coated, is washed. 
The gutta-percha or gelatinous materal, at that part where it comes in direct 
contact with the permeable material, adheres firmly thereto; but at those 
parts covered by the ink, it has no such adhesion, and simply holds to the 
ink design. The ink, being readily soluble in water, is removed in the 
washing, and carries away the gutta-percha covering it ; thus the design 
drawn upon the permeable material is now the only pervious part remaining 
in the surface. 

The back part of the pervious substance or fabric is now to be coated with 
the ink or color or colors required to be printed ; and the ink or color having 
been applied, the impression is taken from the face of the fabric or substance 
by pressure in a suitable press; the paper or surface to be printed being 
placed in contact with the face of ‘the fabric or printing surface, the ink or 


9 


98 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


color passes through the pervious part, and is thus applied and printed on 
the paper or other surface required. 

Instead of applying the ink or color to the back of the pervious material, 
the design in that material may be placed on a pad containing a reservoir of 
ink or color, by which the ink or color is supplied by pressing it on such 
pad ; from which it passes through the pervious parts of the material con- 
stituting the design, to the paper or substance vlaced on the face of the 
printing surface to receive the impression. 


IMPROVEMENT IN PRINTING PRESSES. 


An apparatus has recently been patented by M. Y. Beach, Esq., proprie- 
tor of the N. Y. Sun, for turning the sheet in printing newspapers, and 
printing it upon the second side before it leaves the press. The invention, as 
now used, is attached to one of Hoe’s Cylinder Presses. 

In its operation there is no checking or reversing the ordinary movements 
of the press. A double or twin set of fingers, which shut against each other, 
are so arranged as to grasp the back or tail end of the sheet before it leaves 
the printing cylinder, and after the first impression is taken. The sheet, 
thus held fast while the cylinder continues to revolve, is drawn in again for 
the second impression, and thus the feeding the sheet by hand the second 
time, or fifty per cent. of the labor now required is saved, and, practically, 
the sheet is printed on both sides at once — two forms instead of one being 
placed upon the press. 


RENDERING FABRICS FIRE PROOF. 


An English patented discovery, by Mr. Maugham, has for its object an im- 
provement in the preparation or manufacture of starch, and consists in pre- 
paring starch which shall have the property of rendering the fabrics to which 
it may be applied incapable of transmitting flame or fire. For this purpose, 
the starch having been manufactured, is saturated or mixed with phosphate 
of ammonia, and a small quantity of muriate of ammonia. ‘The starch is 
afterwards dried or prepared, to render it suitable for the market. 

Afier the water is decanted off at the end of the process usually practised 
for making starch, and before the starch is dried, the phosphate of ammonia 
is incorporated therewith, in the proportion of 480 grains to one ounce of 
the moist starch. The starch is then to be dried in the usual manner, when 
it will be fit for the market, and is to be mixed with water and applied to the 
fabric in the usual way. Or, after the starch has been made by any of the 
usual methods, and has become dry, phosphate of ammonia is added, in the 
proportion of 600 grains of the salt to one ounce of starch, and the ingre- 
dients are then ground together. The starch is now ready for use, and may 
be mixed with the usual quantity of water, and applied to linen or other 
fabrics in the ordinary way. It is, however, to be observed that the fabrics 
should not be thoroughly dried and then sprinkled with water, after the man- 
ner generally adopted by laundresses, before ironing, but the fabrics should 
be partially dried, and then rolled tight in a dry cloth, and allowed to re- 
main some time before ironing; and to prevent the iron from Sticking, a little 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTs. 99 


clean tallow or white wax should be previously added to the starch when it 
is being mixed with the water. When starch is to be used for coarse fabrics 
for the purpose of rendering them fire proof, muriate of ammonia may be 
employed with the phosphate of ammonia, and jn that case the phosphate of 
ammonia is to be diminished in proportion to the quantity of muriate of 
ammonia added. 


RENDERING STUFFS WATER-PROOPF. 


The following is a description of a method patented by M. Menoti, of 
France, for rendering stuffs water-proof, and yet allowing them to remain 
permeable to air. We translate the French measures, assuming the litre 
as a quart, and the kilogramme as two and a quarter pounds avoirdupois. 

Take two vessels of a capacity of five gallons each; place in one twenty- 
two pounds of alum; in the other, nine pounds oleic acid, and one anda 
half gallons alcohol. Stir this mixture well, and pour it into the first vessel, 
taking care to stir well with a wooden ladle during the mixture, and for ten 
minutes afterwards. Let the mixture stand for twenty-four hours, then de- 
cant the oleic acid and alcohol which are floating on top. Throw the pre- 
cipitate upon a felt filter, and press until all the liquidisrun out. Take the 
precipitate from the filter and dry at eighty-six degrees ; when dried, powder 
it by rolling it upon a table with a wooden roller. This compound the 
author calls hydrofugine. 'To use this, dissolve it in 150 times its weight of 
warm water for woollen stuffs, while for linen, cotton, or silk, 100 times the 
weight will be enough. Filter the solution throngh linen, and plunge the 
stuffs to be water-proofed into it; soax them well, then take them out and 
wring them ; soak them a second time, then take them out and dry them 
either in the air or before a fire. The stuffs, when well dried, are impermea- 
ble to water, but not to air. The quantity of hydrofugine necessary cannot 
be accurately determined, bret generally one ounce is enough for two yards 
of cloth or four of muslin. 

M. Thieux, of Marseilles, proposes a simpler process. In two vessels, 
each of a content of twelve gallons of river water, are dissolved, in the one 
three anda half pounds of alum, in the other the same weight of sugar of 
lead. When the solutions are complete, pour the liquids together, by which 
will be formed an insoluble sulphate of lead, and soluble acetates of alumina 
and potassa, mixed with a slight excess of alum. As soon as the liquid has 
become clear, it is drawn off and the stuffs plunged into it; they must be 
strongly compressed while under the liquid, to expel the air from their pores, 
and then suffered to soak for at least four hours, so as to insure the perfect 
penetration of the liquid everywhere. When withdrawn they are lightly 
shaken, then dried, brushed, and pressed with a hot iron. It appears that 
various specimens of cloth experimented on by a committee, absorbed 
from eleven to seventeen per cent. of their weight of saline matters, and re- 
tained their original appearance, and their pliability at all temperatures. 
But after immersion in fresh water for twenty-four hours, they lost all their 
additional weight. As to the efficacy in this process, there appears to be 
a very serious difference of opinion ; the conclusions of a committee ap- 


100 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pointed to examine it, as reported by M. Jacquelan, are that it is not new, nor 
as good as was announced; but it had been tried and approved for five 
years by the Lyons and Mediterranean Railroad Company; that the Com- 
mittee could not tell whether it was durable or not; its cost was about twenty 
cents for water-proofing a coat or pair of pantaloons. On the other hand, 
M. Balard, known to all, as one of the most distinguished and careful 
chemists of France, reports that the thinnest woolien cloths impregnated with 
it are totally impermeable to water after weeks of contact with it, that the 
water evaporates from them, and does not pass through ; that clothes which 
had been soaked for forty-eight hours in fresh water, were as impermeable 
afterwards as before; but that the transpiration from the skin appears to 
destroy the impermeability, so that it is probably applicable only to exterior 
clothing ; finally, that there is every probability that it is lasting, as appears 
from the certificates. M. Balard himself testifies that an overcoat worn by 
him for five months, which had been beaten and rubbed and subjected to all 
the ordinary usage of overcoats, remained perfectly impermeable. Clothes 
prepared in this way are said to be softer to the touch, warmer, absorbing 
less moisture, drying more quickly, and therefore more durable. 

It would appear, therefore, that this process, which is cheap and easily ap- 
plicable, even after articles are made up, is well worth experimenting upon. 
— Bull. Soc. Encour., Sept. and Dec., 1855. 

Waterproofing Paper, Cloth and Leather. — P. Pierre Hoffman, of Stras- 
bourg, has taken out a patent in England for a new varnish, which, when 
applied to the articles named in the above caption, render them, it is stated, 
air and water-proof, while at the same time they keep dry under all varia- 
tions of temperature in the open air, are elastic and do not become sticky — 
the latter being a fault common to a number of varnishes. The articles are 
coated with a mixture either of siccative linseed oil and sulphur, called balm 
of sulphur, or of a mixture of sulphur with a quantity of siccative oil, gum 
copal, gum opal, yellow amber, resin, india rubber, and gutta percha and 
with the essences of turpentine or naphtha, etc., these two latter keeping in 
solution the above named substances, which may be mixed separately or at 
the same time with the balm of sulphur. 6 

The chief features of the invention consist in the use of the balm of sul- 
phur for rendering fabrics air and water-proof, and in preparing the balm in 
the following manner :— When the siccative or common drying oil has boiled 
for about two hours, in order to thicken it and separate its mucilaginous 
parts it is left afew days to settle, previous to decantation; then ten parts, 
by weight, are taken and submitted to slow boiling, during which small 
quantities of flowers of sulphur are added, and agitation is kept up the whole 
time. When from one to two parts of flowers of sulphur have been thus 
thrown in small quantities into the oily mixture, a transformation soon takes 
place, and the balm of sulphur now assumes a homogeneous mass of a 
brownish color, cohesive and elastic, somewhat like india rubber. The con- 
stituents of this composition or coating are then the following (by weight) : 
Ten parts of siccative thickened linseed oil, and from one to two parts of 
sulphur in powder. The balm of sulphur, thus prepared, is used as the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 101 


coating, and liquified either by the action of heat, or by means of solvents, 
such as spirits of turpentine, naphtha, ete. When it is desired to obtain a 
harder coating, gallipot gum, yellow amber and resin, etc., may be added. 

The fabric to be coated is dipped into the material when hot, and in the 
liquid state, from which it is withdrawn and made to pass between six 
scrapers adjusted transversely above the vessel, so that any excess of the 
material is removed, and drops into the vessel again. 

To Render Paper Impervious to Water.— Take twenty-four ounces of 
alum, and four ounces of white soap, and dissolve them in two pounds of 
water; in another vessel dissolve two ounces of gum arabic, and six 
ounces of glue in the same quantity of water as the former. Add the two 
solutions together, which is now to be kept warm. The paper intended to 
be made water-proof is dipped into it, passed between rollers, and dried; or 
without the use of rollers, the paper may be suspended until it is perfectly 
dripped and then dried. The alum, soap, glue and gum form a kind of ar- 
tificial leather, which protects the surface of the paper from the action of 
water, and also renders it somewhat fire-proof. 


PREVENTION OF DECAY IN STONE-WORK. 


The following are recent inventions, introduced or patented in England, 
and on the continent, for the prevention of the decay of stone-work under 
the various climatic influences to which it isexposed. By the employment of 
a solution made of one part by weight of sublimed sulphur in eight parts of 
linseed oil, heated in a sand-bath to a temperature of 278 degrees Fahren- 
heit, the vegetable mucus of the oil is precipitated, the watery particles 
evaporated, and their place supplied by the sulphur, which is readily taken 
up by the oil at the above temperature. The solution should be applied by- 
a common painter’s brush, until the stone will absorb no more. Stone thus 
indurated becomes almost equal to granite in hardness, and, as far as a test 
of four years can prove, not only shows no symptoms of decay, but actually 
increases in hardness. 

Another invention, patented by Mr. H. C. Page, of London, has for its 
object the preservation of the beauty, color and value of marble and stone, 
as well as their sharpness when sculptured. The following is the process 
adopted :— The surface of the marble or stone is wetted with a solution . 
composed of two parts of lime and one part of pearlash. The stone is then 
exposed to a gradual heat until dried, and, when sufficiently hot, white bees- 
wax is passed quickly over the surface. This should be done two or three 
times should the marble or stone be very porous ; the surface should then be 
cleaned while the stone is warm, and afterwards cooled by pouring cold 
water upon it. Variegated patterns or devices in colors may also be pro- 
duced by applying them to the surface according to the taste of the artist, 
and the stone then heated, beeswax rubbed over it, and cooled by water as 
before. Common stone work may be indurated by dissolving one pound of 
calcined beeswax in one gallon of coal-tar naphtha, and applying the mix- 


Q* 


102 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ture with an ordinary painter’s brush over the surface of the stone, which is 
then cleaned with pumice-stone or other fine grit, and clean water. 
Ransome’s process for preserving stone, which has received high com- 
mendation in England, consists in coating the stone or other material first 
with a solution of a soluble silicate, and afterward applying a solution of 
chloride of calcium, with a view of forming an insoluble silicate of lime in 
the body of the stone. In place of a soluble silicate and chloride of calcium, 
other preparations may be used; the invention consisting in the application 
in succession of two solutions, which, by mutual decomposition, produce an 
in insoluble substance, which is deposited in the structure and on to the sur- 
face of the stone or other material. It is claimed that this application not 
only prevents new stone from decaying, but effectually prevents the further 
decay of that which is already rapidly approaching disintegration. The ef- 
ficacy of this mineral is not confined to stone alone, but may be applied to 


_ brick, lime, stucco, etc., with equally effective results. 


— ae 


NEW WATER-PROOF GLUE, 


The following is the composition of a new water-proof glue, which is said 
to be superior to the well-known “ Jeffries’ Marine Glue.” 

Dissolve one-fourth of a pound of common glue in water the usual way ; 
then dip into it some clean white paper, sufficient to take it all up. When 
the paper is nearly dry, cut it into strips and put them into a common glue 
pot; add one pound of alcohol, and boil gently for one hour. Then take 
out the paper — the only use of which is to give the glue more surface for 
the action of the alcohol — and add one fourth of a pound of powdered gum 


‘shell-lac ; continue the heat, gently stir the mixture until the shell-lac is dis- 


solved, and then evaporate it to the proper consistence for use. For cement 
add more shell-lac and prepare it thicker. 

Elastic Glue—M. Lallemant, of Paris, finds that by mixing gelatine 
with an equal weight of glycerine, it is rendered permanently elastic, and 
is preserved from putrefaction. This material may be used for dentist’s 
purposes, for printers’ inking rollers, &e. 


NEW GOLD VARNISH. 


A beautiful and permanent gold varnish, which does not lose its color by 
exposure to light and air, may be thus prepared :—two ounces of best 
French garancine to be digested in a glass vessel with six ounces of alcohol 
of specific gravity of 0,833 for twelve hours, pressed and filtered; a solution 
of clear orange-colored shell-lac in similar alcohol is also prepared, filtered, 
and evaporated, until the lac has the consistence of a clear syrup. It is then 
colored with the tincture of garancine. Objects coated with this have a 
color which only differs from that of gold by a slight brownish tinge. The 
color may be more closely assimilated by a little tincture of saffron. 

Moulds of Stearic Acid and Shell-lac for Galvanoplasiic Copies. The best 
material for moulds is prepared from equal parts of stearic acid and shell- 
lac. ‘The stearic acid is melted first, and the shell-lac is then added in small 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 103 


fragments ; the mass is heated until it becomes ignited. It is allowed to 
burn until the shell-lac which separates from the stearic acid by the great 
heat, again combines with it. The ignition is continued until a drop let 
fall upon a cold metal plate receives the black lead readily after its solidifi- 
cation. The mass is poured into a paper box, and its surface rubbed with 
black lead. — Polyt. Notizblatt. 


EXTRACTING COLORING MATTER. 


L. P. Kerdyk, of England, has invented an apparatus for extracting col- 
oring matters, which consists of an interior case or chamber covered with 
wire cloth and perforated plates, &c., and revolving at a high volocity, in- 
closed in an exterior chamber or case. The pulverized wood or root is 
placed in the internal chamber, and rotary motion being imparted thereto, 
water is introduced, and driven or filtered out by centrifugal force through 
the sides of the case. The insoluble matter remaining behind is removed 
when requisite. The liquid thus separated may be passed into the material, 
and out through the machine again, and so on, as often as necessary, until 
the color is sufficiently extracted from the roots. 


AGEING LIQUORS. 


Wines and liquors are in general esteemed in proportion to their age. 
Various expedients have been resorted to for giving to liquors ‘‘age” more 
rapidly. In ancient times the wine was placed in skins, and hung up in the 
smoke of a fire, where it would receive a gentle heat. A constant move- 
ment of the particles of the liquid was thus occasioned, and the qualities 
due to age were obtained in less time than when not exposed to warmth. 
The mode frequently adopted of late years to obtain “age ” in the least pe- 
riod of time is to put the liquors on board of ships, and send them on yoyages 
through the tropical climates. The gentle undulations of the sea combined 
with the heat of the atmosphere in the tropics give both motion and warmth 
to the liquids by which their qualities are sensibly improved. In other 
words, “‘age” is thus imparted to them, and liquors are increased in price 
in proportion to the number of times they have crossed the equator. 

An American improvement recently patented by Messrs. A. & A. Wal- 
cott of Bloomfield, N. Y., consists in subjecting the liquors to what may 
be termed an artificial sea voyage. They place the liquor upon shelves. 
which are gently swung to and fro, the apartment being suitably heated and 
kept dark. Heat and undulation are thus conveniently communicated, and 
the desired “age” is obtained in much less time than by any other known 
method. This improved process continued for one year gives, it is stated, 
a value to the liquors which requires four years’ time to attain by the ordi- 
nary means. — Scientific American. 


CONTRIVANCE TO PREVENT LIQUORS BOILING OVER. 


This contrivance, the invention of Mr. J. Lieblong of Waterbury, Ct., 
consists in placing a conical shaped cap within the vessel, said cap having 


104 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


an opening at its apex, over which a deflecting plate is placed. The whole 
is so arranged that the boiling liquid will pass up through the opening in 
the apex of the cap and striking against the deflecting plate, will run down 
again into the vessel. The liquid is thus effectually prevented from passing 
over the sides of the vessel. 


DURABILITY OF GUTTA PERCHA. 


Some interesting statements respecting the durability of gutta percha 
_have recently been made public. From an inspection of the underground 
wires of the British Telegraph Company, conducted by Mr. E. Highton, it 
appeared that they had decayed wherever they had passed near the roots of 
an oak. On examination, the root and gutta percha were found to have 
both been attacked by a yellowish white fungus, wnich had destroyed the 
gutta percha wherever brought into contact with it. This was not found to 
be the case under any other tree, but at Winslow such wire as has had been 
inclosed in iron piping was found to be decayed, while that in the usual 
wooden troughs was sound. Here the destruction was evidently not the 
work of fungi: but Mr. Highton’s experiments have led him to the conclu- 
sion that the spawn of the common agaric, and presumably of its congeners 
also possesses the property of decomposing gutta percha; and it is said that 
Dr. O’Shaughnessy has found the telegraphic wires sent out to India unser- 
viceable, on account of the disintegration of their gutta percha envelops. 
Considering how extensively the gum has come to be used, these facts must 
be thought to deserve attention. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN TANNING. 


At a recent meeting of the N. Y. Mechanics’ Institute, Professor Mapes 
described a new centrifugal apparatus by which he bad been enabled to force 
the tannic acid through every part of the raw hide by means of centrifugal 
force generated in a rapidly revolving perforated cylinder resembling the 
sugar machines. 

By the prevailing modes it requires about seventy days to tan completely 
the average of raw hides, while by the improved process Professor Mapes 
said that he had succeeded in tanning a calf skin thoroughly in less than 
fifteen minutes. The process he used was to place the hide around the in- 
side of the cylinder, and holding it there by means of the centrifugal force 
resulting from a very high velocity, and then passing a stream of tan liquor 
into the centre, which was then carried by the centrifugal force against the 
hide, and passed through under the intense pressure, after which it escaped 
through the perforated cylinder into a surrounding vat, and was returned to 
perform the same journey over again until the tannic acid was exhausted. 
Mr. Schultz stated that he had experimented with the hydrostatic column in 
the tanning of calf skins, and found that the process produced the most 
positive results, the raw hide being thoroughly tanned in about fifteen min- 
utes — the height of column being about twenty-five feet. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 105 


ARTIFICIAL HARD GRAIN OF LEATHER. 


To give any kind of leather the appearance of genuine hard grain, J. A. 
Richards, of London, takes a skin of real hard grained leather, electrotypes 
it, and then bends the plate thus produced round a roller or drum, and 
mounts it on a shaft. He then passes the leather to receive the hard grain 
appearance under this roller, which is subjected to great pressure. 


ON THE MANUFACTURE OF KELP. 


From recently-published satistics we derive the following information re- 
lative to the production of kelp and its resulting products in Ireland and 
Scotland : 

The quantity of kelp imported into Glasgow is generally about six thou- 
sand tons annually, although it has reached near twelve thousand in one 
year. Of this amount about seven thousand tons are produced in Ireland, 
and the rest in Scotland. The average price of kelp at the several places 
of collection is twenty dollars per ton. The average cost to the manufac- 
turer is twenty-five dollars. The aggregate amount expended annually 
upon this product of the ocean is thus shown to be about $225,000. 

From these figures some idea may be formed of the value of this manu- 
facture to the inhabitants of the sea coast, and they are well worthy the 
attention of the inhabitants of the Maine and Nova Scotia seaboard. __ 

The average amount of Iodine procurable from a ton of kelp is about 
nine pounds. The salts of Potash, however, constitute a very important 
element in calculating the yield of kelp. The following table gives some 
idea of the yield of 9,000 tons of kelp: 


OPPeeUOMINeG PeMGONs soc o Acasa nicteek otras clsise ee ee eter 81,000 pounds 
500 Ibs Chloride Potassium per ton,................00e0++20+ 4,500,000 ve 
ABA bs Sulph:-|PRotash, per toms. ..t:5.). Wiss esisies sels Seis ase epentia els 1,350,000 os 


800 Ibs. mixed Carb. Mur. and Sulph. Soda, called Kelp Salt, 2,700,000 oe 


The insoluble residuum which remains after the exhaustion of the soluble 
contents of the kelp, and which amounts to about one half the original 
weight, when mixed with sand is the flux used by the glass bottle makers 
in Scotland, the price paid being generally one dollar per ton. 


ARTIFICIAL WHALEBONE. 


In 1855, Joseph Kleeman, Meissen, Germany, obtained a patent for a 
mode of preparing a substitute for whalebone. The process has recently 
been successfully introduced into New York City. 

It consists in taking sticks of the common ratan and soaking them in a 
liquid extract for about four days, after which they are immersed in a solu- 
tion of any of the iron salts, which gives the ratan a deep black dye. Sub- 
sequently the sticks are exposed in a close vessel, for the space of about one 
hour, to the action of steam of about three or four atmospheres’ pressure, 
and then thoroughly dried in a furnace or drying-room at a temperature of 


106 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


about 180 degrees, Fah., when they become ready for the impregnating 
process. 

The sticks are then placed into an iron cylinder (capable of standing the 
pressure of at least ten atmospheres), connected by a pipe with an open 
vessel, containing a varnish made by dissolving 120 parts of shell-lac and 
200 parts of burgundy pitch in ninety parts of absolute alcohol. The air 
having been exhausted from the cylinder, the cock connecting it with the 
vessel containing the varnish is opened, when the atmospheric pressure will 
force the varnish into the cylinder and into the pores of the ratan. 

The impregnation of the ratan is rendered more perfect by the use of a 
pump for forcing the solution into the cylinder. The ratan has now changed 
its character, and become hardly distinguishable from the best quality of 
whalebone, except that it is somewhat more elastic and less liable to splinter 
and break. It has gained one hundred per cent. in weight by impregnation. 
After being removed from the cylinders, or impregnators, but little remains 
to be done in the way of drying, polishing, and fitting the ends, ete., to pre- 
pare it for use for umbrellas, parasols, canes, etc., and various other pur- 
poses. 

The following is an extract from the specification of an English patent, 
recently granted for preparing cane, in order to render it a substitute for 
whalebone: The cane is first cut by being passed between two circular 
saws, the cane being moved past the saws by two grooved rollers, and it is 
supported by a grooved bed or guide, on to which it is pressed by a pressing 
roller. The canes having been properly cut on four sides, they are to be 
impregnated with a preparation of animal matter, which is obtained as fol- 
lows : Bones are steeped in a solution of chloride of lime, the bones having 
afterwards been dried, are softened by digesting with steam ; they are then 
combined with a solution of alum, and the filtered liquor obtained is em- 
ployed for impregnating the canes, by placing them in a suitable closed 
vessel with such fluid, and subjecting the same to a pressure of about twelve 
atmospheres. After the impregnated canes have been dried in currents of 
air, they are soaked in a solution of alum, and again dried and finished for 
use. 


IMITATION MARBLE. 


A patent granted to the Penrhyn Marble Company, of Boston, for the 
manufacture of artificial marble, has reference in particular to a method of 
applying the colors by means of a peculiar bath, used in place of the ordi- 
nary size bath, long familiar in the manufacture of marble paper. The bath 
patented, consists in a film of Dammara resin floated upon water, which 
may be broken up into any desired figures, by means of a rod or spatula, 
previously dipped into the desired colors. The bath thus prepared is said 
to be more manageable than the ordinary one. 

The article to be “ marbleized,” which is generally a surface of slate, is, 
after being prepared with the ground color, immersed in the bath, then 
withdrawn, dried or baked in an oven, and then coated with a proper varnish, 
and again heated. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 107 


Compared with the “ marbleized iron,” these objects are better imitations 
of the stone, because the iron has to be covered with a glass to give it the 
stone surface, and the thickness of this transparent coating shows itself in 
certain cases; and they are more durable, because the different expansibility 
by heat of the iron and glass, finally causes the latter to crack, and the iron 
then rapidly rusts. The new material is free from both these objections, 
but, on the other hand, the imitations of carved work cannot be done so 
cheaply as in the iron. 

A method recently introduced by Mr. Felix Abate, of Naples, for making 
plaster of Paris as hard as marble, and rendering it susceptible of receiving a 
beautiful polish, is as follows: He places the plaster in a drum turning hori- 
zontally on its axis, and admits steam from a steam boiler ; by this means the 
plaster is made to absorb in a short space of time the desired quantity of 
moisture, which can be regulated with the greatest precision. With plaster 
thus prepared, and which always preserves its pulverulent state, he fills 
suitable moulds, and submits the whole for a short time to the action of an 
hydraulic press. When taken out of the moulds, the articles are ready for 
use. 

The plaster thus prepared is perfectly hard and compact, taking the polish 
of marble. The most delicate bas-reliefs and highly-finished medals may be 
produced from it with the same perfection as they have in the original. 


THE SALT MANUFACTURE OF*THE UNITED STATES. 


The following comprehensive account of the manufacture and consump- 
tion of salt in this country was written in answer to a request for the statis- 
tical information it contains, for the use of a committee of the British Parlia- 
ment. Its*author is a prominent salt merchant of New York City. 


Estimated Quantity of Salt Manufactured in the United States, per Annum. 
Bushels. 


In the State of Massachusetts (mostly in vats built along the seashore),. ..... 46,000 
In the State of New York (Onondaga County), about. ...........0eee eee ee ee 6,090,000 
In the State of Pennsylvania (Alleghany and Kiskiminetas river),............ 900,000 
In the State of Virginia (Kanawha and Kings Works),...............+++++-3,500,000 
Baone pate of Kentucky (Goose Creek), <2 'sc'e0. eae css ve oss 0s oleae vcimeaiemarnd 250.000 
imthe State: of Ohio (Muskingum, Hocking River),. 0.00.00... ck sce cscs ecco: 500,000 
In the State of Ohio (Pomeroy and West Columbia),............... 000.0000 1,000,000 
RACs CE TU OIG 5 e555) «imc o'p tipi aid oidio'n. haat aeaapas dagiokaltne oa ae een eee 50,000 
ere hate OF MICH CAI 5:4. < 06 ape sis; «6 0.0: 215:njoyain xcs aietat, detect otskoenitianete wane, Jn ae eae 10,000 
MPM SPEC LOT, PEKAS 0, vince 0/4:0 e0/0 «4.» siaym oe aieleveretelareteieapaeye ae eee eee eee ree 20,000 
marene state Of Plorida,. 2. ... 5... .-.0ccos BPE eS CE Reb eric PRE ck 100,000 

SOEs rara.s6,5 0.0 0 0,0; :0.0) 6100/2: «0/0 oysheq Syekeges ee ae en een ea 12,376,000 


There are salt lakes in the United States Territories, — one in the south- 
westerly part of Texas and one or more in Utah, where salt of good quality 
is found in great abundance. 

Nearly all of the salt manufactured in the United States is made by boil- 
ing, excepting what is made in Massachusetts, Florida and the Solar Works 
at Onondaga. 


108 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


The amount of salt manufactured at the Solar Works of Onondaga in 
1856, was 709,391 bushels. The amount of salt manufactured in kettles in| 
Onondaga in 1856, was 5,257,419 bushels. 

When the works (at Onondaga) are generally running, they require 
8,000,000 gallons of brine daily, and the supply is not less than 2,000,000 
gallons per day for six months. 

The wells in the Virginia Salt Springs are about nine hundred feet deep. 
The wells at Pomeroy and West Columbia are from one thousand to twelve 
hundred feet deep. 

The estimated quantity of foreign salt consumed in the United States and 
Territories is about 13,500,000 bushels per annum. 

The amount or salt consumed in the United States (for various uses) 1s 
about sixty pounds to each inhabitant. 

The consumption in France is estimated at twenty-one and a half 
pounds ; in Great Britain, at twenty-five pounds for each inhabitant. 

The cost of manufacturing salt by boiling in Onondaga, as per estimate, 
during five consecutive years, averages about one dollar per barrel of 280 
pounds. 7 

‘The minimum price of salt at the Onondaga Works in 1849, 1850, and 
1851 was from seventy to ninety cents per barrel; in 1852, one dollar per 
barrel; in 1853, $1,12; in 1854, $1,25; in 1855, $1,30, and in 1856, $1,40 
per barrel. 

The solar salt costs about the same price to manufacture as boiled 
salt. 

The solar salt weighs about seventy pounds to the bushel (measure). 
The boiled salt weighs about fifty-six poands to the bushel, varying, how- 
ever, according to the position of the kettles, to a weight considerably above 
and also considerably below this standard. ) 

The duty paid to the State of New York on salt manufactured at Onon- 
daga is always reckoned on fifty-six pounds (this being the statute bushel), 
and covers the expense incurred by the State for pumping up the water and 
delivering it to the premises of the manufacturers. 

A salt block at Onondaga, of the largest size, is made of brick, about 
twelve to fifteen feet wide, four to five feet high, and forming two parallel 
arches, extending the whole length of the block. Over, and within the top 
of these arches, are placed common cast iron kettles, holding about fifty to 
seventy gallons of brine, placed close together in two rows the whole length 
of the arches. A fire built in the mouth of the arches passes under each 
kettle into a chimney, built generally fifty to one hundred and fifty feet high, 
averaging from fifty to seventy kettles in each block. A single block with 
one row of kettles is about half this width. 

The quantity of salt made in one of these double blocks in the year (say 
of eight months) averages 20,000 to 25,000 bushels of fifty-six pounds. 

The cost of a bushel of salt produced at Kanawha is about seventeen and 
a half cents. 

The price of freight ona sack of Liverpool salt, from New Orleans to 
Louisville, averages about thirty-five cents per sack. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 109 


A good portion of the coarse hard salt imported into the United States 
from the most southerly islands of the West India group, is kiln dried, 
cleansed, ground very fine, and put in small packages for culinary or dairy 
use. The amount of coarse and fine salt imported into the United States 
from foreign countries during the year ending June 30, 1856, was 15,405,864 
bushels. ‘The amount of domestic salt exported during the year ending 
June 30, 1856, was 698,458 bushels. The amount of foreign salt exported 
during the year ending June 30, 1856, was 126,427 bushels. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SALT. 


Where artificial heat is employed to produce salt, the brine is placed in 
large kettles, and the fire applied beneath. After the brine has become re- 
duced to what is called “ strong brine,”’ and begins to crystallize, it is liable 
to cake up and collect on the bottom of the kettle. It is in part kept clear 
by attendants, who stir up the mixture, scrape it off, ete. But in nearly all 
cases there is some caking and a partial discoloration of the salt, which tends 
to diminish its selling value. 

An improvement, patented by J. P. Tale, of Kanawha, Va., consists in 
the use of two kettles placed cne inside the other, a space being left be- 
tween. ‘The weak brine is boiled in the lower kettle against which the fire 
is applied. After the liquid has boiled down into “‘ strong brine ”’ it is drawn 
off into a vat, where it remains long enough for its impurities to settle. It 
is then pumped into the upper kettle and crystallized, no stirring being re- 
quired, as no caking or discoloration occurs. ‘The upper kettle is heated by 
the hot brine between it and the lower vessel. 

Mr. J. L. Humphrey, of Syracuse, N. Y., has invented an improvement 
in Salt Evaporators, which consists in an arrangement whereby the heated 
products of combustion from a furnace are drawn, by a blower, through flues 
passing through a closed evaporation vessel below the surface of brine, or 
other liquor, and by the same blower are forced back again, through the ves- 
sel, over the surface of the liquor, and into the chimney of the furnace. The 
heat from the furnace is thus used to effect evaporation both below and above 
the surface of the liquor, and the draft of the chimney is employed to carry 
off the evaporation. The improvement consists, further, in a scraper fitting 
to the flues below the surface of the liquor, and having a movement back 
and forth along the tubes, to remove the deposit which is caused to incrust 
itself upon them by crystallization, and which, if not removed, would pre- 
vent the heat being rapidly conducted to the liquor. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SOLAR EVAPORATION. 


An improved arrangement for evaporation by solar heat, recently patented 


by Mr. Gordon, a distinguished engineer of London, consists in employing 


reflecting apparatus, or concentrating or refracting lenses, or both combined, 
in such a manner that the heat of the sun’s rays is for hours continuously 
rendered applicable for purposes of evaporating and even distilling fluids. 
The apparatus the patentee calls a thermoheliostat, because it collects the 


10 


110 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


sun’s rays and continuously directs them upon a body placed in or near the 
focus to which the rays are required to converge, the thermohelostat being 
made to keep pace or correspond with the sun’s diurnal motion. The 
patentee proposes to use the thermoheliostat for the purpose of distilling sea 
water, and obtaining therefrom fresh water ; also for boiling and evaporat- 
ing and generating steam; and for purposes of cooking, especially in 
tropical climates, and in positions where the sun’s heat is great, and where 
it may be difficult or expensive to procure coal, wood, or other fuel for mak- 
ing a fire, such as at certain lighthouses, in positions little frequented. The 
patentee states that he prefers reflecting the rays of the sun fo refracting 
them through glass, but describes both. 


MACHINE FOR SORTING IVORY COMBS. 


In the manufacture of ivory combs the blanks are generally cut of as 
great length as the width of the elephant’s tusks, out of which they are 
made, admits. Therefore there is always a great variety of lengths, and 
many of them are so nearly of the same size that it is difficult to detect any 
difference without comparing them closely, side by side. 

It is desirable in putting the combs up in packages of dozens, more or 
less, to have all the combs in one package of the same size exactly. The 
only way of sorting them heretofore employed, has been to pick them out 
by hand, which is a slow and tedious operation, requiring great practice to 
acquire any considerable degree of skill. 

Messrs. Wm. Foskett and Benjamin §. Stedman, of Meriden, Conn., 
have recently invented a machine which is intended to perform this opera- 
tion of sorting, with great exactness and despatch. It consists of a round 
table with a slot or groove cut through around its edge. Said slot is made 
in flaring form, being wider at one end than the other. The blanks are 
placed one at a time, across the head er movement part of the slot; there is 
a pointer in the centre of the table, which then comes around and sweeps the 
blank along the surface of the slot until a point is reached where the slot is 
wider than the blank, when it falls through. Boxes are aranged beneath 
the slot, into which the different sizes fall, and thus are separated. 


IMPROVEMENT IN FLUTES. 


An improvement in flutes has been recently patented by M. J. Pfaff, which 
consists in placing the mouth piece of the flute at right angles to the body 
of the same, so that the instrument may be played upon without the per- 
former twisting his arms and neck into an unnatural position. 


NEW METHOD OF MAKING BASKETS. 


The following plan of making baskets has been recently patented : — The 
body of this basket is made entirely of upright splints or staves, without 
braiding in cross strands. These splints are nearly an eighth of an inch in 
thickness, and are held firmly in place between the two pieces of thin board 
that form the bottom and the two hoops that form the top binding or rim, by 


J 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. Et 


wrought nails that pass through each splint and clinch on the inside. The 
two pieces that form the bottom are placed with the grain of each piece run- 
ning at right angles across the other, so that when the nails are driven and 
clinched it prevents their warping or splitting, thus forming -a very strong 
bottom, on which the basket may be dragged about without danger of break- 
ing or wearing out. The rim at the top being fastened with wrought nails 
that clinch, is very strong, and does not become loose and let the handles 
slip out. <A flexible wire hoop passes around the centre of the basket, 
which is fastened to each splint, separately, confining them firmly in their 
places at that point. 


PRESERVATION OF WHEAT. 


Some time since, under the direction of the French Government, 790 
hectolitres (2,175 bushels) of American corn were, by way of experiment, 
inclosed in two “silos” of sheet iron (large cylinders sunk into the ground, 
so as to form receptacles for corn, like the corn pits in Algeria) and the 
covers secured with seals. These latter were recently removed in the 
presence of two delegates from the War-Office, to which the corn belonged, 
and of the Commission des Subsistances Militaires, and the corn subjected 
to a strict examination, when it was pronounced to be in exactly the same 
state as it was a twelvemonth ago. The cost of preserving corn by means 
of the “silos” does not exceed 80c. (eight pence) per hectolitre (two and 
three-quarter bushels. ) 


A NEW METHOD OF PRESERVING EGGS. 


A new method of preserving eggs has been suggested by an English 
chemist. By coating the shells of fresh laid eggs with mucilage of gum 


‘arabic, he has preserved them perfectly good and sweet for several months. 


In September, 1855, he covered several fresh eggs with two coatings of mu- 
cilage, and in March, 1856, six months afterwards, the eggs were boiled, 
and found to be sweet and good as when newly laid. By this plan eggs 
may be preserved in summer for use in winter. One coating of the gum 
arabic should be quite dry before the other is applied. A small brush is best 
for the purpose of applying it. 


SIMPLE CONTRIVANCE FOR TRANSPLANTING TREES. 


Take a sheet of iron four feet square and one-eighth of an inch thick. 
We must suppose one side to be the front; on the front, therefore, rivet two 
strong iron staples, one near, but not close to each corner. ‘These staples 
must be cleft to admit and embrace the iron sheet; rivet also two staples be- 
hind, so that a horse, or two or three men, may, by means of ropes, drag 
the contrivance on either side. The tree is to be placed upright on this iron 
sheet, and fastened to it by cords passed through the four staples; it can 
now be dragged over the ground without any shaking, and as it slips over 
the surface without much labor, and as no lifting has been required to place 
the tree on the carriage, very large balls can be conveyed with the tree, thus 
lessening the risk of moving. — Horticulturist. 


112 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


EMBOSSED VENEERS. 


One of the most useful mechanical processes brought forward of late, is 
that of embossing veneers for any kind of ornamental wood-work to represent 
elaborate carvings on wood, and dispensing with that comparatively slow 
and expensive process. The veneers are prepared according to the inven- 
tor’s peculiar method, then placed between dies moderately heated, and sub- 
mitted to pressure. One of the faces of the wood receives the pattern in re- 
lief, and gives it the appearance of elaborate wood carving. The depression 
caused by the dies on the opposite side of the veneer are filled up with a 
suitable plastic substance; this being dried, the embossed veneer is ready to 
be glued, or otherwise attached to the furniture. 


AUTOMATIC LATHE. 


An ingenious and compact automatic lathe, for the production of beaded 
work of any kind, has recently been invented and patented by G. W. Wal- 
ton and H. Edgarton, of Wilmington, Delaware. 

The cutter head is hollow, and the cutters are mounted in such manner 
that, by a very simple movement, the edges are removed from, or brought 
nearer to, the axis of motion, the movement being governed by a cam out- 
side. ‘This cam may be made in any required form, and the configuration 
and disposition of the beads are thereby under complete control. The lathe 
executes plain cylindrical and beaded work with great rapidity; all the 
products cut after the same pattern, being precisely uniform and regular. 


IMPROVED BREAD KNEADING MACHINE. 


Hard bread or ship biscuit has long been made by machinery, but many 
unsuccessful attempts have been made to apply it to the preparation of 
dough for soft or family bread. The failures have been so numerous that it 
has been considered quite impossible to make mechanical labor a perfect 
substitute for manual labor in this important branch of bread-making. It 
was very desirable to accomplish this object under the ordinary system. of 
baking, for the labor of kneading the dough is excessively severe, and the 
exhausted workman, reecking with perspiration, will often remit his exertions 
at the very time they should be continued to work the dough effectually, and 
, thus injure the quality of the bread. The defects of machinery applied to 
this operation have been chopping up the dough, or working it short and 
heating it so as to kill the life of the flour, instead of preserving a certain 
continuity of the mass in combination with a thorough mixing process, in- 
corporating the air perfectly, effects which are produced by the violent 
action of the hands and arms of the workman in punching, squeezing, draw- 
ing out and doubling up the dough. 

A machine recently invented by Mr. Berdan, of New York City, has been 
operated most successfully, and, it is thought, will overcome the difficulties 
heretofore experienced. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 113 


It is a stationary cylinder of wood, open on the top, ten feet long by six 
feet in diameter, in which is a horizontal shaft, so secured that the inside 
heads of the cylinder revolve with it; and on these heads, extending across 
near the periphery, are iron bars, varying in form, which have the duty of 
mixing and thoroughly incorporating the flour and water as they revolve. 
This part of the operation of kneading is the first in order after the sponge 
is raised, and is performed by the rotation of the cylinder in a few minutes. 
After this work is done, another operation commences, which is executed by 
an additional cross-bar, which is movable and is inserted at the right time. 
This is a plain plank-shaped affair, which swings on hinges in an eccentric 
manner, and plunges into the dough at the bottom of the cylinder, cuts off 
and raises up a portion of the dough till it passes over a certain point, 
spreading and drawing it out in the act, and then throwing or flapping it 
down with force, so as to inclose the air and imitate the same motion and 
result accomplished by the workman with his hands and arms. This move- 
ment is continued until the dough is perfectly kneaded, when it is taken out 
by a trap-door, and the machine is ready to receive another batch. 


IMPROVED GAS-BURNERS. 


Ata recent meeting of the Franklin Institute, Mr. S. S. Garrigues ex- 
hibited specimens of bat-wing, fish-tail and Argand burners made of por- 
celain, the object being to get rid of the rusting, which occurs in metallic 
burners when exposed, thus proventing a perfect combustion of the gas. 

To obviate the corrosion, and expansion of the orifices of gas-burners by 
heat, he has lately manufactured gas-burners from soapstone (steatite), which 
is prepared for this purpose in apeculiar manner. This stone is cut up into 
small four-sided slabs, put into hermetically sealed cases, and exposed to a 
slow five until it becomes red hot. Great care is exercised in thus roasting 
the stone, because if quickly heated, it will rupture by the sudden expansion 
of small particles of moisture in it. The steatite slabs are exposed to this 
heat for about two hours, slowly cooled, and are then easily turned to the 
proper shape ina lathe. After this they are boiled in oil until they acquire 
a deep brown color, when they are taken out, dried, and made to assume a 
beautiful polish by simply rubbing them with a woollen rag. The boring 
of gas-burners is an art requiring great care and skill, as the opening of each 
burner is formed to consume a certain quantity of gas. 

Gas-burners made as described from soapstone are stated to be perfectly 
fire-proof, and not liable to any change or alteration in the size of the bore 
or nature of the material by the strongest heat produced by the combustion 
of the gas. Liebig gives these burners a very high character, and advises 
all chemists to employ them in their laboratories, as they are not affected by 
the largest flames to which they may be exposed in applying them to distil- 
lation or other methods of analysis, ete. 

Batchelder’s anti-flickering gas-burner attains its object by means of a circle 
of minute jets of flame around the light. These create an ascending current 
“that shield it from the cool current as effectually as the glass chimney of the 
common argand lamp. 


10* 


114 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


MACHINES FOR FELLING TREES. 


Two machines, the separate inventions of Messrs. Ingersoll and Ehrsam, 
are now before the public. Ingersoll’s machine weighs one hundred and 
fifty pounds. The cutting tool is a straight horizontal saw, projecting out- 
side of the frame. By turning a crank, an alternate motion is given to the 
saw, and it is pressed against the wood ry a spring, which has to be wound 
up from time to time. The machine is placed on the ground on the side of 
the tree opposite to that on which it has a tendency to fall. The crank is 
then turned, and, after the entire breadth of the saw is in the wood, a wedge 
is placed behind in the cut to prevent closing when the tree does not lean on 
the opposite side. ‘The machine being placed on its side, and spur-wheels 
being substituted for the bevel wheels which are between the crank and the 
saw, it is transformed into a machine for sawing logs. Horse power may 
then be applied to it. Ehrsam’s machine is all metal. There is a large 
ring in two half circles, hinged at one end and keyed at the other, which is 
placed around the tree and firmly held against it by a few long screws. In- 
side this ring is another, which, by means of a crown wheel cut in it, and of 
a pinion, is made to revolve. This second ring carries a gouge or a chisel, 
extending inside to the tree and advancing to the core when the turning 
proceeds. A groove is thus cut around the tree, and it is alleged by persons 
who have experimented with the machine, that the wood will not close on 
the tool as long as six inches remain uncut. At this stage of the operation 
the machine is taken away, and the remainder is cut with a hand-saw. It is 
absolutely necessary with this machine to finish the work by hand; for the 
tool going around, wedges cannot be placed in the groove to prevent its 
closing ; and if this was obviated by sustaining the tree from the outside, it 
would break the machine, whatever way it should fall. 


CORN HUSKING MACHINES. 


John Taggert and L. A. Grover, of Roxbury, Mass., have patented, and 
are introducing a machine which, at a moderate cost, seems well designed to 
strip the husks from Indian corn very rapidly and effectually. The husks 
are loosened by sawing off the butt of the cob, so close as to graze and per- 
haps nearly destroy the first row of the grain, and the loose husks are then 
readily removed by teeth projecting up through a grate on which the ears 
fail. The ears in their natural state are seized and carried through very 
rapidly and quictly; and the power for the whole is supplied by the foot of 
the operator. 

Another machine, more effectual and ingenious than the above, has also 
been recently invented by Dr. E, 8. Holmes, of Lockport, N. Y. A proper 
description cannot, however be given of it, without diagrams. It operates 
not only on the ears broken from the stalks, but also, by attachment to the 
side of a wagon, it can be made to both pick, husk and place in a receptacle 
the ears from the stalk standing in the field. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 145 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 


Among the interesting and important occurrences of the past year, is the 
successful inauguration in Great Britain of a “ National Association for the 
Promotion of Social Science.” The project was due to Lord Brougham, 
and the initiatory steps for giving it form and substance, were taken at a 
private mecting at his house, sometime in the spring of last year. The gen- 
eral object of the association is to bring together persons interested in the 
various plans and studies which have for their end the improvement, pro- 
gress, or happiness of society, —all philanthropists on a large or small 
scale, whether dealing with moral, political or material means of influence, 
for the purpose of bringing their information, their themes, and the results 
of their investigations to definite and practical uses. The advantage of com- 
bined effort in reaching the public mind in such a way as to bring a general 
influence to bear upon special measures, and in presenting to the legislature 
those measures prepared in a well-considered, practical, and so to speak an 
authentic form, are apparent enough. The difficulty of obtaining these ad- 
vantages by a permanent organization, without wholly covering them up 
with cumbrous formalities, or losing them in the disputes or jealousies of 
contending theories, are almost equally manifest. 

Notwithstanding the difficulties, the attempt was decided upon, and the 
organization of the association took place at Birmingham, the first session 
being held on the evening of the 12th of October, 1857. An inaugural ad- 
dress was delivered by Lord Brougham, the first President of the General 
Association, which consisted of an able review of what had been done pre- 
viously for amelioration of society, what remained to be done, and, in a cer- 
tain sense, the way to do it. He dwelt particulariy upon the important 
beneficial influences upon legislation in Great Britain, which have been pro- 
duced within the last twenty years, by similar associations of less comprehen- 
sive character than that now inaugurated. Of these he instanced with the 
most particularity, pointing out many marked instances of their usefulness, 
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the Society for the Pro- 
moting the Amendment of the Law, and the Mercantile Conferences, by 
which Boards of Trade and Commerce have in several instances had united 
action, and which have been the means of encouraging the formation and 
extending the usefulness of those boards. Speaking of the Law Amend- 
ment Society, he said: —‘‘ Since its establishment in 1844, most of the 
bills which I have brought forward, and of which many have been passed, 
making a great change in our jurisprudence, either originated in the in- 
quiries and reports of that society’s committees. or owed to the labors and 
authority of that body valuable help towards, first, their preparation, and 
then their adoption...... Of the nine bills which were presented by me 
to the House of Lords in 1845, and six of which are now the law of the 
land, two of the six were suggested by the society, and another, the most 
important of the whole, and which has eatirely changed the course of proce- 
dure, the Act for the Examination of Parties in all Suits, I never could 
have succeeded in carrying but for the society’s correspondence with all the 


116 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


county court judges, and their direct unanimous testimony in favor of the 
change.”’ 

On the day after the delivery of this address, the society again met, and 
several hours were devoted to the inaugural addresses of the ‘‘ Presidents ” 
of the several departments into which the association had been divided for 
business purposes. These departments were, Jurisprudence and Amendment 
of the Law, over which Lord Joun Russell presided; Education, Sir J. Pak- 
ington ; Punishment and Reformation, Mr. Hill, Recorder of Birmingham 
(in the absence of the Bishop of London, who had engaged to preside in that 
department) ; Public Health, Lord Stanley ; Social Economy, Sir Benjamin 
Brodie. 

The addresses of these presiding officers were all delivered in the Town 
Hall, before the whole assembly, before the sections had separated to their 
several meetings, and were generally, although prepared for delivery to the 
individual departments to which their respective authors belonged, of a com- 
prehensive though practical character. 

The address of Lord Stanley, of the section of public health, abounded in 
statistics, and in very able deductions drawn from them. These statistics 
had reference to the conditions of living, dieting, and to the sewage of great 
towns, — the last a most important question ; for at present we really only 
remove a nuisance from our own locality to fix it in that of a neighbor. 
Our principle is like that of Mohammedan citizens, who, when suffering 
from the plague, only implore Allah to remove the pestilence to some other 
town. The closing portion of the noble Lord’s speech is well worthy of 
being read, and remembered. — “ Dry and unattractive as sanitary studies 
may appear, they belong to the patriot no less the philanthropist: they 
touch very nearly the future prosperity and the national greatness of Eng- 
land. Do not fancy that the mischief done by disease spreading through 
the community is to be measured by the number of deaths which ensue. 
That is the least part of the result. As ina battle, the killed bear but a small 
proportion to the wounded. It is not merely by the crowded hospitals, the 
frequent funerals, the destitution of families, or the increased pressure of 
public burdens, that you may test the sufferings of a nation over which sick- 
ness has passed. The real and lasting injury lies in the deterioration of 
race, in the seeds of disease transmitted to future generations, in the degen- 
eracy and decay which are never detected till the evil is irreparable, and of 
which, even then, the cause remains often undiscovered. It concerns us if 
the work of England be that of colonization and dominion abroad —if wild 
hordes and savage races are to be brought by our agency under the influence 
of civilized man — if we are to maintain peace, to extend commerce, to hold 
our own among many rivals, alike by arts and arms, —it concerns us, I 
say, that strong hands shall be forthcoming to wield either sword or spade 
= that vigorous constitutions be not wanting to endure the vicissitudes of 
climate and the labors of a settler in a new country. I believe that what- 
ever exceptions may be found in individual instances, when you come to 
deal with men in the mass, physical and moral decay necessarily go to- 
gether; and it would be small satisfaction to know that we had through a 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. Liz 


series of ages successfully resisted every external agency if we learned too 
late that that vigor and energy for which ours stands confessedly preémi- 
nent among the races of the world were being undermined by a secret but 
irresistible agency, the offspring of our own neglect, against which science 
and humanity had warned us in vain.” 

After the delivery of the inaugural addresses, the association separated into 
sections, and attended to the reading of papers, and to discussions on appro- 
priate subjects. 


NATURAL PHITOSOPALY. 


ON THE INTERACTION OF NATURAL FORCES. 


The following lecture by Mr. Helmholtz, Professor of Physiology in the 
university of Bonn, Germany, translated by Professor Tyndall, and pub- 
lished in the London Philosophical Magazine, is an exceedingly interesting 
contribution to science, and, although of considerable length, will well re- 
pay perusal : 

A new conquest of very general interest has been recently made by natural 
philosophy. In the following pages, I will endeavor to give a notion of the 
nature of this conquest. It has reference to a new and universal natural 
law, which rules the action of natural forces in their mutual relations towards 
each other, and is as influential on our theoretic views of natural processes as 
it is important in their technical applications. 

Among the practical arts which owe their progress to the development of 
the natural sciences, from the conclusion of the middle ages downwards, 
practical mechanics, aided by the mathematical science which bears the 
same name, was one of the most prominent. The character of the art was, 
at the time referred to, naturally very different from its present one. Sur- 
prised and stimulated by its own success, it thought no problem beyond its 
power, and immediately attacked some of the most difficult and complicated. 
Thus it was attempted to build automaton figures which should perform the 
functions of men and animals. The wonder of the last century was Vau- 
canson’s duck, which fed and digested its food ; the flute-player of the same 
artist, which moved all its fingers correctly ; the writing boy of the older, 
and the piano-forte player of the younger Droz: which latter, when perform- 
ing, followed its hands with his eyes, and at the conclusion of the piece 
bowed courteously to the audience. That men like those mentioned, whose 
talent might bear comparison with the most inventive heads of the present 
age, should spend so much time in the construction of these figures, which 
we at present regard as the merest trifles, would be incomprehensible, if 
they had not hoped in solemn earnest to solve a great problem. The writ- 
ing boy of the elder Droz was publicly exhibited in Germany some years 
ago. Its wheel-work is so complicated, that no ordinary head would be suf- 
ficient to decipher its manner of action. When, however, we are informed 
that this boy and its constructer, being suspected of the black art, lay for a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 


time in the Spanish Inquisition, and with difficulty obtained their freedom, we 
may infer that in those days even such a toy appeared great enough to ex- 
cite doubts as to its natural origin. And though these artists may not have 
hoped to breathe into the creature of their ingenuity a soul gifted with moral 
completeness, still there were many who would be willing to dispense with 
the moral qualities of their servants, if, at the same time, their immoral 
qualities could also be got rid of ; and accept, instead of the mutability of flesh 
and bones, services which should combine the regularity of a machine with 
the durability of brass and steel. The object, therefore, which the inventive 
genius of the past century placed before it with the fullest earnestness, and 
not as a piece of amusement merely, was boldly chosen, and was followed 
up with an expenditure of sagacity which has contributed not a little to 
enrich the mechanical experience which a later time knew how to take ad- 
vantage of. We no longer seek to build machines which shall fulfil the 
thousand services required of ene man, but desire, on the contrary, that a 
machine shall perform one service, but shall occupy in doing it the place of 
a thousand men. 

From these efforts to imitate living creatures, another idea, also by a mis- 
understanding, seems to have developed itself, which, as it were, formed the 
new philosopher’s stone of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was 
now the endeavor to construct a perpetual motion. Under this term was 
understood a machine, which, without being wound up, without consuming 
in the working of it, falling water, wind, or any other natural force, should 
still continue in motion, the motive power being perpetually supplied by the 
machine itself. Beasts and human beings seemed to correspond to the idea 
of such an apparatus, for they moved themselves energetically and inces- 
santly as long as they lived, were never wound up, and nobody set them in 
motion. A connection between the taking-in of nourishment and the de- 
velopment of force did not make itself apparent. The nourishment seemed 
only necessary to grease, as it were, the wheelwork of the animal machine, 
to replace what was used up, and to renew the old. The development of 
force out of itself seemed to be the essential peculiarity, the real quintessence 
of organic life. If, therefore, men were to be constructed, a perpetual motion 
must first be found. 

Another hope also seemed to take up incidentally the second place, which, 
in our wiser age, would certainly have claimed the first rank in the thoughts 
of men. The perpetual motion was to produce work inexhaustibly without 
corresponding consumption, that is to say, out of nothing. Work, however, 
ismoney. Here, therefore, the great practical problem which the cunning 
heads of all centuries have followed in the most diverse ways, namely, to 
fabricate money out of nothing, invited solution. The similarity with the 
philosopher’s stone sought by the ancient chemists was complete. That 
also was thought to contain the quintessence of organic life, and to be capa- 
ble of producing gold. 

The spur which drove men to inquiry was sharp, and the talent of some 
of the seekers must not be estimated as small. The nature of the problem 
was quite calculated to entice poring brains, to lead them round a circle for 


120 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


years, deceiving ever with new expectations, which vanished upon nearer 
approach, and finally reducing these dupes of hope to open insanity. The 
phantom could not be grasped. It would be impossible to give a history of 
these efforts, as the clearer heads, among whom the elder Droz must be 
ranked, convinced themselves of the futility of their experiments, and were 
naturally not inclined to speak much about them. Bewildered intellects, 
however, proclaimed often enough that they had discovered the grand 
secret; and as the incorrectness of their proceedings was always speedily 
manifest, the matter fell into bad repute, and the opinion strengthened 
itself more and more that the problem was not capable of solution; one dif- 
ficulty after another was brought under the dominion of mathematical 
mechanics, and finally a point was reached where it could be proved, that, 
at least, by the use of pure mechanical forces, no perpetual motion could be 
generated. 

We have here arrived at the idea of the driving force or power of a 
machine, and shall have much to do with it in future. I must, therefcre, 
give an explanation of it. The idea of work is evidently transferred to 
machines by comparing their arrangements with those of men and animals, 
to replace which they were applied. We still reckon the work of steam 
engines according to horse-power. The value of manual labor is determined 
partly by the force which is expended in it (a strong laborer is valued more 
highly than a weak one), partly, however, by the skill which is brought into 
action. A machine, on the contrary, which executes work skilfully, can 
always be multiplied to any extent; hence its skill has not the high value 
of human skill in domains where the latter cannot be supplied by machines. 
Thus the idea of the quantity of work in the case of machines has been 
limited to the consideration of the expenditure of force ; this was the more 
important, as indeed most machines are constructed for the express purpose 
of exceeding, by the magnitude of their effects, the powers of men and ani- 
mals. Hence, in a mechanical sense, the idea of work is become identical 
with that of the expenditure of force, and in this way I will apply it. 

How, then, can we measure this expenditure, and compare it in the case 
of different machines ? 

I must here conduct you a portion of the way — as short a portion as pos- 
sible — over the uninviting field of mathematico-mechanical ideas, in order 
to bring you to a point of view from which a more rewarding prospect will 
open. And though the example which I shall here choose, namely, that of 
a water-mill with iron hammer, appears to be tolerably romantic, still, alas, 
I must leave the dark forest valley, the spark-emitting anvil, and the black 
Cyclops wholly out of sight, and beg a moment’s attention to the less poetic 
side of the question, namely, the machinery. This is driven by a water- 
wheel, which in its turn is set in motion by the falling water. The axle of 
the water-wheel has at certain places small projections, thumbs, which, during 
the rotation, lift the heavy hammer and permit it to fall again. The falling 
hammer belabors the mass of metal, which is introduced beneath it. The 
work therefore done by the machine consists, in this case, in the lifting of the 
hammer, to do which the gravity of the latter must be overcome. The 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. TE 


expenditure of force will, in the first place, other circumstances being equal, 


' be proportional to the weight of the hammer ; it will, for example, be double 


when the weight of the hammer is doubled. But the action of the hammer 
depends not upon its weight alone, but also upon the height from which it 
fells. If it falls through two feet, it will produce a greater effect than if it 
falls through only one foot. It is, however, clear that if the machine, with 
a certain expenditure of force, lifts the hammer a foot in height, the same 
amount of force must be expended to raise it a second foot in height. The 
work is therefore not only doubled when the weight of the hammer is in- 
creased twofold, but also when the space through which it falls is doubled. 
From this it is easy to see that the work must be measured by the product 
of the weight into the space through which it ascends. And in this way, 
indeed, do we measure in mechanics. 

The unit of work is a foot-pound, that is, a pound weight raised to the 
height of one foot. 

While the work in this case consists in the raising of the heavy hammer- 
head, the driving force which sets the latter in motion, is generated by fall- 
ing water. It is not necessary that the water should fall vertically, it can 
also flow in a moderately inclined bed; but it must always, where it has 
water-mills to set in motion, move from a higher to a lower position. Ex- 
periment and theory coincide in teaching, that when a hammer of a hundred 
weight is to be raised one foot, to accomplish this at least a hundred weight 
of water must fall through the space of one foot; or what is equivalent to 
this, two hundred weight must fall half a foot, or four hundred weight a 
quarter of a foot, etc. In short, if we multiply the weight of the falling 
water by the height through which it falls, and regard, as before, the product 
as the measure of the work, then the work performed by the machine in 
raising the hammer, can, in the most favorable case, be only equal to the 
number of foot-pounds of water which have fallen in the same time. In 
practice, indeed, this ratio is by no means attained; a great portion of the 
work of the falling water escapes unused, inasmuch as part of the force is 
willingly sacrificed for the sake of obtaining greater speed. 

I wiil further remark, that this relation remains unchanged whether the 
hammer is driven immediately by the axle of the wheel, or whether —by 
the intervention of wheel-work, endless screws, pulleys, ropes — the motion 
is transferred to the hammer. We may, indeed, by such arrangements, suc- 
ceed in raising a hammer of ten hundred weight, when by the first simple 
airangement, the elevation of a hammer one hundred weight might alone be 
possible; but either this heavier hammer is raised to only one tenth of the 
height, or tenfold the time is required to raise it to the same height ; so that, 
however we may alter, by the interposition of machinery, the intensity of the 
acting force, still in a certain time, during which the mill-stream furnishes 
us with a definite quantity of water, a certain definite quantity of work, and 
no more, can be performed. 

Our machinery, therefore, has, in the first place, done nothing more than 
make use of the gravity of the falling water in order to overpower the gravity 
of the hammer, and to raise the latter. When it has lifted the hammer to 


it 


122 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the necessary height, it again liberates it, and the hammer falls upon the 
metal mass which is pushed beneath it. But why does the falling hammer 
here exercise a greater force than when it is permitted simply to press with 
its own weight on the mass of metal? Why is its power greater as the 
height from which it falls is increased? We find, in fact, that the work pet- 
formed by the hammer is determined by its velocity. In other cases, also, 
the velocity of moving masses is a means of producing great effects. I only 
remind you of the destructive effects of musket-bullets, which, in a state of 
_ rest, are the most harmless things in the world. I remind you of the wind- 
mill, which derives its force from the moving air. It may appear surprising 
that motion, which we are accustomed to regard as a non-essential and 
transitory endowment of bodies, can produce such great effects. But the 
fact is, that motion appears to us, under ordinary circumstances, transitory, 
because the movement of all terrestrial bodies is resisted perpetually by other 
forces, friction, resistance of the air, etc., so that motion is incessantly 
weakened and finally neutralized. A body, however, which is opposed by 
no resisting force, when once set in motion, moves onwards eternally with 
undiminished velocity. Thus we know that the planetary bodies have 
moved without change, through space, for thousands of years. Only by re- 
sisting forces can motion be diminished or destroyed. A moving body, 
such as the hammer or the muskct-ball, when it strikes against another, 
presses the latter together, or penetrates it, until the sune of the resisting 
forces which the body struck presents to its pressure, or to the separation of 
its particles, is sufficiently great to destroy the motion of the hammer or of 
the bullet. The motion of a mass regarded as taking the place of working 
force is called the living force (vis vira) of the mass. The word “ living ” 
has of course here no reference whatever to living beings, but is intended to 
represent solely the force of the motion as distinguished from the state of un- 
changed rest —fiom the gravity of a motionless body, for example, which . 
produces an incessant pressure against the surface which supports it, but 
does not produce any motion. 

In the case before us, therefore, we had first power in the form of a fall- 
ing mass of water, then in the form of a lifted hammer, and, thirdly, in the 
form of the living force of the fallen hammer. We should transform the 
third form into the second, if we, for example, permitted the hammer to fall 
upon a highly elastic steel beam strong enough to resist the shock. The 
hammer would rebound, and in the most favorable case would reach a 
height equal to that from which it fell, but would never rise higher. In this 
way its mass would ascend: and at the moment when its highest point has 
heen attained, it would represent the same number of raised foot-pounds as 
before it fell, never a greater number; that is to say, living force can gene- 
rate the same amount of work as that expended in its production. It is 
therefore equivalent to this quantity of work. 

Our clocks are driven by means of sinking weights, and our watches by 
means of the tension of springs. A weight which lies on the ground, an 
elastic spring which is without tension, can produce no effects ; to obtain 
such we must first raise the weight or impart tension to the spring, which is 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 


accomplished when we wind up our clocks and watches. The man who 
winds the clock or watch communicates to the weight or to the spring a 
certain amount of power, and exactly so much as is thus communicated is 
gradually given out again during the following twenty-four hours, the 
original force being thus slowly consumed to overcome the friction of the 
wheels and the resistance which the pendulum encounters from the air. 
The wheel-work of the clock therefore exhibits no working force which was 
not previously communicated to it, but simply distributes the force given to 
it uniformly over a longer time. 

Into the chamber of an air-gun we squeeze, by means of a condensing air- 
pump, a great quantity of air. When we afterwards open the cock of a gun 
and admit the compressed air into the barrel, the ball is driven out of the 
latter with a force similar to that exerted by ignited powder. Now we may 
determine the work consumed in the pumping-in of the air, and the living 
force which, upon firing, is communicated to the ball, but we shall never 
find the latter greater than the former. The compressed air has generated 
no working force, but simply gives to the bullet that which has been pre- 
viously communicated to it. And while we have pumped for perhaps a 
quarter of an hour to charge the gun, the force is expended in a few seconds 
when the bullet is discharged; but because the action is compressed into so 
short a time, a much greater velocity is imparted to the ball than would be 
possible to communicate to it by the unaided effort of the arm in throwing it. 

From these examples you observe, and the mathematical theory has cox- 
roborated this for all purely mechanical, that is to say, for moving forces, 
that all our machinery and apparatus generate no force, but simply yield up 
the power communicated to them by natural ferces, — falling water, moving 
wind, or by the muscles of men and animals. Afier this law had been 
established by the great mathematicians of the last century, a perpetual 
motion, which should only make use of pure mechanical forces, such as 
gravity, elasticity, pressure of liquids and gases, could only be sought after 
by bewildered and ill-instructed people. But there are still other natural 
forces which are not reckoned among the purely moving forces, —heat, 
electricity, magnetism, light, chemical forces, all of which nevertheless stand 
in manifold relation to mechanical processes. There is hardly a natural 
process to be found which is not accompanied by mechanical actions, or 
from which mechanical work may not be derived. Here the question of a 
perpetual motion remained open; the decision of this question marks the 
progress of modern physics. 

In the case of the air-gun, the work to be accomplished in the propulsion 
of the ball was given by the arm of the man who pumped in the air. In 
ordinary firearms, the condensed mass of air which propels the bullet is ob- 
tained in a totally different manner, namely, by the combustion of the pow- 
der. Gunpowder is transformed by combustion for the most part into gas- 
eous products, which endeavor to occupy a much larger space than that 
previously taken up by the volume of the powder. ‘Thus, you see, that, by 
the use of gunpowder, the work which the human arm must accomplish in 
the case of the air-gun is spared. 


124 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY, 


In the mightiest of our machines, the steam engine, it is a strongly com- 
pressed aériform body, water vapor, which, by its effort to expand, scts the 
machine in motion. Here also we do not condense the steam by means of 
an external mechanical force, but by communicating heat to a mass of water 
in a closed boiler, we change this water into steam, which, in consequence 
of the limits of the space, is developed under strong pressure. In this case, 
therefore, it is the heat communicated which generates the mechanical force. 
The heat thus necessary for the machine we might obtain in many ways; 
the ordinary method is to procure it from the combustion of coal. 

Combustion is a chemical process. A particular constituent of our at- 
mosphere, oxygen, possesses a strong force of attraction, or, as it is named 
in chemistry, a strong affinity for the constituents of the combustible body, 
which affinity, however, in most cases, can only exert itself at high tempera- 
tures. As soon as a portion of the combustible body, for example the coal, 
is sufficiently heated, the carbon unites itself with great violence to the oxy- 
gen of the atmosphere and forms a peculiar gas, carbonic acid, the same 
which we see foaming from beer and champagne. By this combination, light 
and heat are generated ; heat is generally developed by any combination of 
two bodies of strong affinity for each other ; and when the heat is intense 
enough, light appears. Hence, in the steam engine, it is chemical processes 
and chemical forces which produce the astonishing work of these machines. 
In like manner the combustion of gunpowder is a chemical process, which, 
in the barrel of the gun, communicates living force to the bullet. 

While now the steam engine develops for us mechanical work out of 
heat, we can conversely generate heat by mechanical forces. A skilful 
blacksmith can render an iron wedge red hot by hammering. The axles of 
our carriages must be protected, by careful greasing, from ignition through 
friction. yen lately this property has been applied on a large scale. In some 
factories, where a surplus of water power is at hand, this surplus is applied to 
cause a strong iron plate to rotate swiftly upon another, so that they become 
strongly heated by the friction. ‘The heat so obtained warms the room, and 
thus a stove without fuel is provided. Now, could not the heat generated by 
the plates be applied to a small steam engine, which, in its turn, should be able 
to keep the rubbing plates in motion? ‘The perpetual motion would thus be 
at length found. This question might be asked, and could not be decided by 
the older mathematico-mechanical investigations. IL will remark, before- 
hand, that the general law which I will lay before you answers the question 
in the negative. 

By a similar plan, however, a speculative American set some time ago the 
industrial world of Europe in excitement. The magneto-electrie machines 
often made use of in the case of rheumatic disorders are well known to the 
public. By imparting a swift rotation to the magnet of such a machine, we 
obtain powerful currents of electricity. If those be conducted through 
water, the latter will be reduced into its two components, oxygen and hydro- 
gen. By the combustion of hydrogen, water is again generated. If this 
combustion takes place, not in atmospheric air, of which oxygen only con- 
stitutes a fifth part, but in pure oxygen, and if a bit of chalk be placed in 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 13s 


the flame, the chalk will be raised to a white heat, and give us the sun-like 
Drummond’s light. At the same time, the flame develops a considerable 
quantity of heat. Our American proposed to utilize in this way the gases 
obtained from electrolytic decomposition, and asserted that by the combus- 
tion a sufficient amount of heat was generated to keep a small steam engine 
in action, which again drove his magneto-electrie machine, decomposed the 
water, and thus continually prepared its own fuel. This would certainly 
have been the most splendid of all discoveries; a perpetual motion which, 
besides the force that kept it going, generated light like the sun, and warmed 
all around it. The matter was by no means badly cogitated. Each practi- 
cal step in the affair was known to be possible; but those which at that time 
were acquainted with the physical investigations which bear upon this sub- 
ject could have affirmed, on first hearing the report, that the matter was to 
be numbered among the numerous stories of the fable-rich America ; and, 
indeed, a fable it remained. 

It is not necessary to multiply examples further. You will infer from 
those given, in what immediate connection heat, electricity, magnetism, light, 
and chemical affinity, stand with mechanical forces. 

Starting from each of these different manifestations of natural forces, we 
can set every other in motion, for the most part not in one way merely, but 
in many ways. It is here as with the weaver’s web,— 


Where a step stirs a thousand threads, 

The shuttles shoot from side to side, 

The fibres flow unseen, 

And one shock strikes a thousand combinations. 


Now it is clear that if by any means we could succeed, as the above 
American professed to have done, by mechanical forces, to excite chemical, 
electrical, or other natural processes, which, by any circuit whatever, and 
without altering permanently the active masses in the machine, could pro- 
duce mechanical force in greater quantity than that at first applicd, a por- 
tion of the work thus gained might be made use of to keep the machine in 
motion, while the rest of the work might be applied to any other purpose 
whatever. The problem was, to find in the complicated net of reciprocal ac- 
tions, a track through chemical, electrical, magnetical, and thermic processes, 
back to mechanical actions, which might be followed with a final gain of 
mechanical work ; thus would the perpetual motion be found. 

But, warned by the futility of former experiments, the public had become 
wiser. On the whole, people did not seek much after combinations which 
promised to furnish a perpetual motion, but the question was inverted. It 
was no more asked, How can J make use of the known and unknown rela- 
tions of natural forces so as to construct a perpetual motion ? but it was 
asked, If a perpetual motion be impossible, what are the relations which 
must subsist between natural forces? Everything was gained by this inver- 
sion of the question. The relations of natural forces rendered necessary by 
the above assumption, might be easily and completely stated. It was found 
that all known relations of forces harmonize with the consequences of that 


i> 


“? 


126 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


assumption, and a series of unknown relations were discovered at the same 
time, the correctness of which remained to be proved. If a single one of 
them could be proved false, then a perpetual motion would be possible. 

The first who endeavored to travel this way was a Frenchman, named 
Carnot, in the year 1824. In spite of a too limited conception of his sub- 
ject, and an incorrect view as to the nature of heat, which led him to some 
erroneous conclusions, his experiment was not quite unsuccessful. He dis- 
covered a law which now bears his name, and to which I will return fur- 
ther on. 

His labors remained for a long time without notice, and it was not till 
eighteen years afterwards, that is, in 1842, that different investigators in dif- 
ferent countries, and independent of Carnot, laid hold of the same thought. 

The first who saw truly the general law here referred to, and expressed it 
correctly, was a German physician, J. R. Mayer, of Heilbronn, in the year 
1842. A little later, in 1843, a Dane, named Colding, presented a memoir 
to the Academy of Copenhagen, in which the same law found utterance, and 
some experiments were described for its further corroboration. In England, 
Joule began about the same time to make experiments having reference to the 
same subject. We often find, in the case of questions to the solution of 
which the development of science points, that several heads, quite indepen- 
dent of cach other, generate exactly the same series of reflections.* 

I myself, without being acquainted with either Mayer or Colding, and 
having first made the acquaintance of Joule’s experiments at the end of my 
investigation, followed the same path. JI endeavored to ascertain all the re- 
lations between the different natural processes, which followed from our re-- 
garding them from the above point of view. My inquiry was made publie 
in 1847, ina small pamphlet bearing the title, ‘“On the Conservation of 
Force.” 

Since that time the interest of the scientific public for this subject has 
gradually augmented. A great number of the essential consequences of 
the above manner of viewing the subject, the proof of which was wanting 
when the first theoretic notions were published, have since been confirmed 


*The following extract is taken from a lecture by Mr. Grove, delivered at the 
London Institution, on the 19th of January, 1842: — i 

‘“« Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, and chemical affinity, are all con- 
vertible material affections; assuming any one as a cause, one of the others will be 
the effect. Thus heat may be said to produce electricity, electricity to produce 
heat; magnetism to produce electricity, electricity magnetism; and so of the rest. 
Cause and effect, therefore, in their relation to such forces, are words solely of con- 
venience; we are totally unacquainted with the generating power of each and all 
of them, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain the normal of 
their action; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and 
content ourselves with studying their effects, and developing by experiment their 
mutual relations.” 

“‘T have long held an opinion,” says Mr. Faraday, in 1845, ‘‘ almost amounting to 
conviction, in common I belicve with many other lovers of natural knowledge, 
that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have a 
common origin, or in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, 
that they are convertible one into another.” 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 127 


by experiment, particularly by those of Joule; and during the last year the 
most eminent physicist of France, Regnault, has adopted the new mode of 
regarding the question, and by fresh investigations on the specific heat of 
gases has contributed much to its support. For some important conse- 
quences the experimental proof is still wanting, but the number of confirma- 
tions is so predominant, that I have not deemed it too early to bring the sub- 
ject before even a non-scientific audience. 

How the question has been decided you may already infer from what has 
been stated. In the series of natural processes there is no circuit to be 
found, by which mechanical force can be gained without a corresponding 
consumption. The perpetual motion remains impossible. Our reflections, 
however, gain thereby a higher interest. 

We have thus far regarded the development of force by natural pro- 
cesses, only in its relation to its usefulness to man, as mechanical force. 
You now see that we have arrived at a general law, which holds good wholly 
independent of the application which man makes of natural forces ; we must 
therefore make the expression of our law correspond to this more general 
significance. It is in the first place clear, that the work which, by any 
natural process whatever, is performed under favorable conditions by a 
machine, and which may be measured in the way already indicated, may be 
used as a measure of force common to all. Further, the important ques- 
tion arises, “‘ If the quantity of force cannot be augmented except by cor- 
responding consumption, can it be diminished or lost? For the purposes of 
our machines it certainly can, if we neglect the opportunity to convert 
natural processes to use, but as investigation has proyed, not for a nature as 
a whole.” 

In the collision and friction of bodies against each other, the mechanics of 
former years assumed simply that living force was lost. But I have already 
stated that each collision and each act of friction generates heat; and, 
moreover, Joule has established by experiment the important law, that for 
every foot-pound of force which is lost, a definite quantity of heat is always 
generated, and that when work is performed by the consumption of heat, 
for each foot-pound thus gained a definite quantity of heat disappears. The 
quantity of heat necessary to raise the temperature of a pound of water a 
degree of the centigrade thermometer, corresponds to a mechanical force by 
which a pound weight would be raised to the height of 1,350 feet; we name 
this quantity the mechanical equivalent of heat. I may mention here that 
these facts conduct of necessity to the conclusion, that heat is not, as was 
formerly imagined, a fine imponderable substance, but that, like light, it is a 
peculiar shivering motion of the ultimate particles of bodies. In collision 
and friction, according to this manner of viewing the subject, the motion of 
the mass of a body which is apparently lost is converted into a motion of 
the ultimate particles of the body; and conversely, when mechanical force 
is generated by heat, the motion of the ultimate particles is converted into a 
motion of the mass. 

Chemical combinations generate heat, and the quantity of this heat is 
totally independent of the time and steps through which the combination 


128 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 

has been effected, provided that other actions are not at the same time 
brought into play. If, however, mechanical work is at the same time ac- 
complished, as in the case of the steam engine, we obtain as much less heat 
as is equivalent to this work. The quantity of work produced by chemical 
force is in general very great. A pound of the purest coal gives, when 
burnt, sufficient heat to raise the temperature of 8,086 pounds of water one 
degree of the centigrade thermometer ; from this we can calculate that the 
magnitude of the chemical force of attraction between the particles of a 
pound of coal and the quantity of oxygen that corresponds to it, is capable 
of lifting a weight of one hundred pounds to a height of twenty miles. 
Unfortunately, in our steam engines, we have hitherto been able to gain only 
the smallest portion of this work ; the greater part is lost in the shape of 
heat. The best expansive engines give back as mechanical work only eigh- 
teen per cent. of the heat generated by the fuel. 

From a similar investigation of all the other known physical and chemi- 
cal processes, we arrive at the conclusion that Nature as a whole possesses a 
store of force which cannot in any way be either increased or diminished, 
and that, therefore, the quantity of force in nature is just as eternal and un- 
alterable as the quantity of matter. Expressed in this form, I have named 
the general law ‘‘ The Principle of the Conservation of Force.” 

We cannot create mechanical force, but we may help ourselves from the 
general store-house of Nature. The brook and the wind, which drive our 
mills, the forest and the coal-bed, which supply our steam engines and warm 
our rooms, are to us the bearers of a small portion of the great natural sup- 
ply which we draw upon for our purposes, and the actions of which we can 
apply as we think fit. The possessor of a mill claims the gravity of the de- 
scending rivulet, or the living force of the moving wind, as his possession. 
These portions of the store of Nature are what give his property its chief 
value. 

Further, from the fact that no portion of force can be absolutely lost, it 
does not follow that a portion may not be inapplicable to human purposes. 
In this respect the inferences drawn by William Thomson from the law of 
Carnot are of importance. This law, which was discovered by Carnot 
during his endeavors to ascertain the relations between heat and mechanical 
force, which, however, by no means belongs to the necessary consequences 
of the conservation of force, and which Clausius was the first to modify in 
such a manner that it no longer contradicted the above general law, ex- 
presses a certain relation between the compressibility, the capacity for heat, 
and the expansion by heat of all bodies. It is not yet considered as actually 
proved, but some remarkable deductions having been drawn from it, and 
afterwards proved to be facts by experiment, it has attained thereby a great 
degree of probability. Besides the mathematical form in which the law was 
first expressed by Carnot, we can give it the following more general expres- 
sion : —‘‘ Only when heat passes from a warmer to a colder body, and eyen 
then only partially, can it be converted into mechanical work.” 

The heat of a body which we cannot cool further, cannot be changed into 
another form of force; into the electric or chemical force, for example. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 


Thus, in our steam engines, we convert a portion of the heat of the glowing 
coal into work, by permitting it to pass to the less warm water of the boiler. 
If, however, ali the bodies in nature had the same temperature, it would be 
impossible to convert any portion of their heat into mechanical work. <Ac- 
cording to this, we can divide the total force store of the universe into two 
parts, one of which is: heat, and must continue to be such; the other, to 
which a portion of the heat of the warmer bodies, and the total sapply of 
chemical, mechanical, electrical, and magnetical forces belong, is capable of 
the most varied changes of form, and constitutes the whole wealth of 
change which takes place in nature. 

But the heat of the warmer bodies strives perpetually to pass to bodies 
less warm by radiation and conduction, and thus to establish an equilibrium 
of temperature. At each motion of a terrestrial body, a portion of mechan- 
ical force passes by friction or collision into heat, of which only a part can 
be converted back again into mechanical force. This is also generally the 
case in every electrical and chemical process. From this, it follows that the 
first portion of the store of force, the unchangeable heat, is augmented by 
every natural process, while the second portion, mechanical, electrical, and 
chemical force, must be diminished; so that if the universe be delivered 
over to the undisturbed action of its physical processes, all force will finally 
pass into the form of heat, and all heat come into a state of equilibrium. 
Then all possibility of a further change would be at an end, and the com- 
plete cessation of all natural processes must set in. The life of men, ani- 
mals, and plants, could not of course continue if the sun had lost its high 
temperature, and with it his ight, —if all the components of the earth’s sur- 
face had closed those combinations which their affinities demand. In short, 
the universe from that time forward would be condemned to a state of eter- 
nal rest. 

These consequences of the law of Carnot are, of course, only valid, pro- 
vided that the law, when sufficiently tested, proves to be universally correct. 
In the mean time there is little prospect of the law being proved incorrect. 
At all events we must admire the sagacity of Thomson, who, in the letters 
of a long known little mathematical formula, which only speaks of the 
heat, volume, and pressure of bodies, was able to discern consequences 
which threatened the universe, though certainly after an infinite period of 
time, with eternal death. 

I have already given you notice that our path lay through a thorny and 
unrefreshing field of mathematico-mechanica, developments. We have 
now left this portion of our road behind us. The general principle which I 
have sought to lay before you has conducted us to a point from which our 
view is a wide one, and, aided by this principle, we can now at pleasure re- 
gard this or the other side of the surrounding world, according as our inter- 
est in the matter leads us. <A glance into the narrow laboratory of the phy- 
Sicist, with its small appliances and complicated abstractions, will not be so 
attractive as a glance at the wide heaven above us, the clouds, the rivers, 
the woods, and the living beings around us. While regarding the laws 
which have been deduced from the physical processes of terrestrial bodies, as 


180 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


applicable also to the heaveniy bodies, let me remind you that the same 
force which, acting at the earth’s surface, we call gravity, (Schwere) acts as 
gravitation in the celestial spaces, and also manifests its power in the motion of 
the immeasurably distant double stars which are governed by exactly the same 
laws as those subsisting between the earth and moon; that, therefore, the 
light and heat of terrestrial bodies do not in any way differ essentially from 
those of the sun, or of the most distant fixed star; that the meteoric stones 
which sometimes fall from external space upon the earth are composed of 
exactly the same simple chemical substances as those with which we are ac- 
quainted. We need, therefore, feel no scruple in granting that general laws 
to which all terrestrial natural processes are subject, are also valid for other 
bodies than the earth. We will, therefore, make use of our law to glance 
over the household of the universe with respect to the store of force, capable 
of action, which it possesses. 

A number of singular peculiarities in the structure of our planetary sys- 
tem indicate that it was once a connected mass with a uniform motion of 
rotation. Without such an assumption it is impossible to explain why all 
the planets move in the same direction round the sun, why they all rotate in 
the same direction round their axes, why the planes of their orbits, and those 
of their satellites and rings all nearly coincide, why all their orbits differ but 
little from circles, and much besides. From these remaining indications of 
a former state, astronomers have shaped an hypothesis regarding the forma- 
tion of our planetary system, which, although from the nature of the case it 
must ever remain an hypothesis, still in its special traits is so well supported 
by analogy, that it certainly deserves our attention. It was Kant, who, fecl- 
ing great interest in the physical description of the earth and the planetary 
system, undertook the labor of studying the works of Newton, and as an 
evidence of the depth to which he had penetrated into the fundamental ideas 
of Newton, seized the notion that the same attractive force of all ponderabie 
matter which now supports the motion of the planets, must also aforetime 
have been able to form from matter loosely scattered in space the planetary 
system. Afterwards, and independent of Kant, Laplace, the great author 
of the Alécanique Céleste, laid hold of the same thought, and introduced it 
among astronomers. 

The commencement of our planetary system, including the sun, must, ac- 
cording to this, be regarded as an immense nebulous mass which filled the 
portion of space which is now occupied by our system, far beyond the limits 
of Neptune, our most distant planet. Even now we perhaps see similar 
masses in the distant regions of the firmament, as patches of nebula, and 
nebulous stars; within our system also, comets, the zodiacal light, the 
corona of the sun during a total eclipse, exhibit remnants of a nebulous 
substance, which is so thin that the light of the stars passes through it un- 
enfeebled and unrefracted. If we calculate the density of the mass of our 
planetary system, according to the above assumption, for the time when it 
was a nebulous sphere, which reached to the path of the outmost planet, we 
should find that it would require several cubic miles of such matter to weigh 
a single grain. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 131 


The general attractive force of all matter must, however, impel these 
masses to approach each other, and to condense, so that the nebulous sphere 
beeame incessantly smaller, by which, according to mechanical laws, a mo- 
tion of rotation originally slow, and the existence of which must be assumed, 
would graduaily become quicker and quicker. By the centrifugal force 
which must act most energetically in the neighborhood of the equator of the 
nebulous sphere, masses could from time to time be torn away, which after- 
wards would continue their courses separate from the main mass, forming 
themselves into single planets, or, similar to the great original sphere, into 
planets with satellites and rings, until finally the principal mass condensed 
itself into the sun. With regard to the origin of heat and light, this view 
gives us no information. 

When the nebulous chaos first separated itself from other fixed star 
masses, it must not only have contained all kinds of matter which was to 
constitute the future planetary system, but also, in accordance with our new 
law, the whole store of force which at one time must unfold therein its 
wealth of actions. Indeed in this respect an immense dower was bestowed 
in the shape of the general attraction of all the particles for each other. 
This force, which on the earth exerts itself as gravity, acts in the heavenly 
spaces as gravitation. As terrestrial gravity when it draws a weight down- 
wards performs work and generates vis viva, so also the heavenly bodies do 
the same when they draw two portions of matter from distant regions of 
space towards each other. 

The chemical forces must have been also present, ready to act; but as 
these forces can only come into operation by the most intimate contact of 
the different masses, condensation must have taken place before the play of 
chemical forces began. 

Whether a still further supply of force in the shape of heat was present 
at the commencement we do not know. At all events, by aid of the law of 
the equivalence of heat and work, we find in the mechanical forces, existing 
at the time to which we refer, such a rich source of heat and light, that 
there is no necessity whatever to take refuge in the idea of a store of these 
forces originally existing. When through condensation of the masses their 
particles came into collision, and clung to each other, the vis viva of their 
motion would be thereby annihilated, and must reappear as heat. Already 
in old theories, it has been calculated, that cosmical masses must generate 
heat by their collision, but it was far from any body’s thought, to make even 
a guess at the amount of heat to be generated in this way. At present we 
can give definite numerical values with certainty. 

Let us make this addition to our assumption ; that, at the commencement, 
the density of the nebulous matter was a vanishing quantity, as compared 
_ with the present density of the sun and planets; we can then calculate how 
much work has been performed by the condensation; we can further calcu- 
late how much of this work still exists in the form of mechanical force, as 
attraction of the planets towards the sun, and as vis viva of their motion, 
and find, by this, how much of the force has been converted into heat. 

The result of this calculation is, that only about the 454th part of the 


182 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


original mechanical force remains as such, and that the remainder, converted 
into heat, would be sufficient to raise a mass of water equal to the sun and 
planets taken together, not less than twenty-eight millions of degrees of the 
centigrade scale. For the sake of comparison, I will mention that the high- 
est temperature which we can produce by the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, which 
is sufficient to fuse and vaporize even platina, and which but few bodies can 
endure, is estimated at about two thousand centigrade degrees. Of the 
action of a temperature of twenty-eight millions of such degrees we can 
form no notion. If the mass of our entire system were pure coal, by the 
combustion of the whole of it only the 3500th part of the above quantity 
would be generated. This is also clear, that such a development of heat 
must have presented the greatest obstacle to the speedy union of the masses, 
that the larger part of the heat must have been diffused by radiation into 
space, before the masses could form bodies possessing the present density of 
the sun and plancts, and that these bodics must once have been ina state of 
fiery fluidity. This notion is corroborated by the geological phenomena of 
our planet ; and with regard to the other planctary bodies, the flattened form 
of the sphere, which is the form of equilibrium of a fluid mass, is indicative 
of a former state of fluidity. If I thus permit an immense quantity of heat 
to disappear without compensation from our system, the principle of the 
conservation of force is not thereby invaded. Certainly for our planet it is 
lost, but not for the universe. It has proceeded outwards, and daily pro- 
ceeds outwards into infinite space; and we know not whether the medium 
which transmits the undulations of light and heat possesses an end where 
the rays must return, or whether they eternaliy pursue their way through in- 
finitude. 

The store of force at present possessed by our system, is also equivalent 
to immense quantities of heat. If our earth were by a sudden shock 
brought to rest on her orbit— which is not to be feared in the existing ar- 
rangements of our system —by such a shock a quantity of heat would be 
generated equal tc that produced by the combustion of fourteen such earths 
of solid coal. Making the most unfavorable assumption as to its capacity 
for heat, that is, placing it equal to that of water, the mass of the earth 
would thereby be heated 11,200 degrees; it would therefore be quite fused 
and for the most part reduced to vapor. If, then, the earth, after having 
been thus brought to rest, should fall into the sun, which of course would be 
the case, the quantity of heat developed by the shock would be four hundred 
times greater. 

Even now, from time to time, such a process is repeated on a small scale. 
There can hardly be a doubt that meteors, fire-balls, and meteoric stones, are 
masses which belong to the universe, and before coming into the domain of 
our earth, moved like the planets round the sun. Only when they enter our 
atmosphere do they become visible and fail sometimes to the earth. In 
order to explain the emission of light by these bodies, and the fact that for 
some time after their descent they are very hot, the friction was long ago 
thought of which they experience in passing through the air. We can now 
calculate that a velocity of 3,000 feet a second, supposing the whole of the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 185 


friction to be expended in heating the solid mass, would raise a picce of 
meteoric iron 1,000° C. in temperature or, in other words, to a vivid red 
heat. Now the average velocity of the meteors scems to be thirty or forty 
times the above amount. ‘1'o compensate this, however, the greater portion 
of the heat is, doubtless, carried away by the condensed mass of air which 
the meteor drives before it. It is known that bright meteors generally leave 
a luminous trail behind them, which probably consists of severed portions of 
the red-hot surfaces. Meteoric masses which fall to the earth often burst 
with a violent explosion, which may be regarded as a result of the quick 
heating. The newly-fallen pieces have been for the most part found hot, 
but not red-hot, which is easily explainable by the circumstance, that during 
the short time occupied by the meteor in passing through the atmosphere, 
only a thin, superficial layer is heated to redness, while but a small quantity 
of heat has been able to penetrate to the interior of the mass. For this reason 
the red heat can speedily disappear. 

Thus has the falling of the meteoric stone, the minute remnant of pro- 
cesses which seem to have played an important part in the formation of the 
heavenly bodies, conducted us to the present time, where we pass from the 


“darkness of hypothetical views to the brightness of knowledge. In what we 


have said, however, all that is hypothetical is the assumption of Kant and 
Laplace, that the masses of our system were once distributed as nebulz in 
space. 

On account of the rarity of the case, we will still further remark, in what 
close coincidence the results of science here stand with the earlier legends of 
the human famiiy, and the forebodings of poetic fancy. The cosmogony 
of ancient nations generally commences with chaos and darkness. 

Neither is the Mosaic tradition very divergent, particularly when we re- 
member that that which Moses names heaven is different from the blue 
dome above us, and is synonymous with space, and that the unformed earth, 
and the waters of the great deep, which were afterwards divided into waters 
above the firmament, and waters below the firmament, resembled the chaotic 
components of the world. 

Our earth bears still the unmistakable traces of its old fiery fluid con- 
dition. The granite formations of her mountains exhibit a structure, which 
can only be produced by the crystallization of fused masses. Investigation 
still shows that the temperature in mines, and borings, increases as we de- 
scend; and if this increase is uniform, at the depth of fifty miles, a heat ex- 
ists sufficient to fuse all our minerals.* yen now our volcanoes project, 
from time to time, mighty masses of fused rocks from their interior, as a 
testimony of the heat which exists there. But the cooled crust of the earth 
has already become so thick, that, as may be shown by calculations of its 
conductive power, the heat coming to the surface from within, in compari- 
son with that reaching the earth from the sun, is exceedingly small, and in- 


* This is not probable. The greater density and consequent better conductivity of 
the mass, ard the elevation of the point of fusion by pressure established by the 
researches of Messrs. Hopkins and Fairbairn, would throw the region of liquidity 
deeper. 


1/3 


ad 


134 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


creases the temperature of the surface only about one thirtieth of a degree 
centigrade; so that the remnant of the old store of force which is enclosed 
as heat within the bowels of the earth, has a sensible influence upon the pro- 
cesses at the earth’s surface, only through the instrumentality of volcanic 
phenomena. These processes owe their power almost wholly to the action of 
other heavenly bodies, particularly to the light and heat of the sun, and partly 
also, in the case of the tides, to the attraction of the sun and moon. 

Most varied and numerous are the changes which we owe to the light and 
heat of the sun. The sun heats our atmosphere irregularly, the warm rare- 
fied air ascends, while fresh cool air flows from the sides to supply its place : 
in this way winds are generated. This action is most powerful at the equa- 
tor, the warm air of which incessantly flows in the upper regions of the at- 
mosphere towards the poles: while just as persistently, at the earth’s sur- 
face, the trade wind carries new and cool air to the equator. Without the 
heat of the sun all winds must, of necessity, cease. Similar currents are 
produced by the same cause in the waters of the sea. Their power may be 
inferred from the influence which in some cases they exert upon climate. 
By them the warm water of the Antilles is carried to the British Isles, andg 
confers upon them a mild, uniform warmth and rich moisture ; while, 
through similar causes, the floating ice of the North Pole is carried to the 
coast of Newfoundland, and produces cold. Further, by the heat of the sun, 
a portion of the water is converted into vapor, which rises in the atmosphere, 
is condensed to clouds, or falls in rain and snow upon the earth, collects in 
the form of springs, brooks, and rivers, and finally reaches the sea again, 
after having gnawed the rocks, carried away the light earth, and thus per- 
formed its part in the geologic changes of the earth; perhaps, besides all 
this it has driven our water-mill upon its way. If the heat of the sun were 
withdrawn, there would remain only a single motion of water, namely, the 
tides, which are produced by the attraction of the sun and moon. 

How is it, now, with the motions and the work of organic beings. To 
the builders of the automata of the last century, men and animals appeared 
as clockwork which was never wound up, and created the force which they 
exerted out of nothing. They did not know how to establish a connection 
between the nutriment consumed and the work generated. Since, however, 
we have learned to discern in the steam-engine this origin of mechanical 
force, we must inquire whether something similar does not hold good with 
regard to men. Indeed, the continuation of life is dependent on the con- 
sumption of nutritive materials: these are combustible substances, which, 
after digestion and being passed into the blood, actually undergo a slow com- 
bustion, and finally enter into almost the same combinations with the oxygen 
of the atmosphere that are produced in an open fire. As the quantity of 
heat generated by combustion is independent of the duration of the com- 
bustion and the steps in which it occurs, we can calculate from the mass of 
the consumed material how much heat, or its equivalent work is thercby 
generated in an animal body. Unfortunatcly, the difficulty of the experi- 
ments is still very great; but within those limits of accuracy which have 
been as yet attainable, the experiments show that the heat generated in the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 135 


animal body corresponds to the amount which would be generated by the 
chemical processes. The animal body therefore does not differ from the 
steam-engine, as regards the manner in which it obtains heat and force, but 
does differ from it in the manner in which the force gained is to be made 
use of. ‘The body is, besides, more limited than the machine in the choice 
of its fuel ; the latter could be heated with segar, with starch-flour, and but- 
ter, just as well as with coal or wood ; the animal body must dissolve its ma- 
terials artificially, and distribute them through its system ; it must, further 
perpetually renew the used-up materials of its organs, and as it cannot it- 
self create the matter necessary for this, the matter must come from without. 
Liebig was the first to point out these various uses of the consumed nutri- 
ment. As material for the perpetual renewal of the body, it seems that 
certain definite albuminous substances which appear ia plants, and from the 
chief mass of the animal body, can alone be used. ‘They form only a por- 
tion of the mass of nutriment taken daily ; the remainder, sugar, starch, fat, 
are really only materials for warming, and are perhaps not to be superseded 
by coal, simply because the latter does not permit itself to be dissolved. 

If, then, the processes in the animal body are not in this respect to be dis- 
tinguished from inorganic processes, the question arises, whence comes the 
nutriment which constitutes the source of the body’s force? The answer is, 
from the vegetable kingdom ; for only the material of plants, or the flesh of 
plant-eating animals, can be made use of for food. The animals which live 
on plants occupy a mean position between carnivorous animals, in which we 
reckon man, and vegetables, which the former could not make use of im- 
mediately as nutriment. In hay and grass the same nutritive substances 
are present as in meal and flour, but in less quantity. As, however, the di- 
gestive organs of man are not in a condition to extract the small quantity of 
the useful from the great excess of the insoluble, we submit, in the first 
place, these substances to the powerful digestion of the ox, permit the 
nourishment to store itself in the animal’s body, in order in the end to gain 
it for ourselves in a more agreeable and useful form. In answer to our 
question, therefore, we are referred to the vegetable world. Now when 
what plants take in and what they give out are made the subjects of investi- 
gation, we find that the principal part of the former consists in the products 
of combustion which are generated by the animal. They take the consumed 
carbon given off in respiration, as carbonic acid, from the air, the consumed 
hydrogen as water, the nitrogen in its simplest and closest combination as 
ammonia; and from these materials, with the assistance of small ingredients 
which they take from the soil, they generate anew the compound combusti- 
ble substances, albumen, sugar, oil,.on which the animal subsists. Here, 
therefore, is a circuit which appears to be a perpetual store of force’ Plants 
prepare fuel and nutriment, animals consume these, burn them slowly in 
their lungs, and from the products of combustion the plants again derive 
their nutriment. The latter is an eternal source of chemical, the former of 
mechanical forces. Would not the combination of both organic kingdoms 
produce the perpetual motion? We must not conclude hastily : further in- 
quiry shows, that plants are capable of producing combustible substances 


¢ 


136 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


only when they are under the influence of the sun. A portion of the sun’s 
rays exhibits a remarkable relation to chemical forces, — it can produce and 
destroy chemical combinations ; and these rays, which for the most part are 
blue or violet, are called therefore chemical rays. We make use of their 
action in the production of photographs. Here compounds of silver are de- 
composed at the place where the sun’s rays strike them. The same rays 
overpower in the green leaves of plants the strong chemical affinity of the 
earbon of the carbonic acid for oxygen, give back the latter free to the at- 
mosphere, and accumulate the other, in combination with other bodies, as 
woody fibre, starch, oil, or resin. ‘These chemically active rays of the sun 
disappear completely as soon as they encounter the green portions of the 
plants, and hence it is that in daguerreotype images the green leaves of 
plants appear uniformly black. Inasmuch as the light coming from them 
does not contain the chemical rays, it is unable to act upon the silver com- 
pounds. 

Hence a certain portion of force disappears from the sunlight, while com- 
bustivle substances are generated and accumulated in plants ; and we can 
assume it as very probable, that the former is the cause of the latter. I 
must indeed remark, that we are in possession of no experiments from which 
we might determine whether the vis viva of the sun’s rays which have dis- 
appeared, corresponds to the chemical forces accumulated during the same 
time; and as long as these experiments are wanting, we cannot regard 
the stated relation as a certainty. If this view should prove correct, we 
derive from it the flattering result, that all force, by means of which our 
bodies live and move, finds its source in the purest sunlight ; and hence we 
are all, in point of nobility, not behind the race of the great monarch of 
China, who heretofore alone called himself Son of the Sun. But it must 
also be conceded, that our lowcr fellow-beings, the frog and leech, share the 
same ethereal origin, as also the whole vegetable world, and even the fuel 
which comes to us from the ages past, as well as the youngest offspring 
of the forest with which we heat our stoves and set our machines in mo- 
tion. 

You see, then, that the immense wealth of ever-changing meteorological, 
climatic, geological, and organie processes of our earth are almost wholly 
preserved in action by the light and heat-giving rays of the sun; and you 
see in this a remarkable axample, how Proteus-like the effects of a single 
cause, under altered external conditions, may exhibit itself in nature. Be- 
sides these, the earth experiences an action of another kind from its central 
luminary, as well as from its satellite the moon, which exhibits itself in the 
remarkable phenomenon of the ebb and flow of the tide. 

Each vf these bodies excites, by its attraction upon the waters of the sea, 
two gigantic waves, which flow in the same direction round the world, as 
the attracting bodies themselves apparently do. The two waves of the 
moon, on account of her greater nearness, are about three and a half times 
as large as those excited by the sun. One of these waves has its crest on 
the quarter of the earth’s surface which is turned towards the moon, the 
other is at the opposite side. Both these quarters possess the flow of the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Tae 


tide, while the regions which lie between have the ebb. Although in the 
open sea the height of the tide amounts to only about three fect, and only in 
certain narrow channels, where the moving water is squeezed together, rises 
to thirty feet, the might of the phenomena is nevertheless manifest from the 
calculation of Bessel, according to which a quarter of the earth covered by 
the sea possesses, during the flow of the tide, about 25,000 cubic miles 
of water more than during the cbb, and that therefore such a mass of 
water must, in six and a quarter hours, flow from one quarter of the carth 
to the other. 

The phenomena of the ebb and flow, as already recognized by Mayer, 
combined with the law of the conservation of force, stands in remarkable 
connection with the question of the stability of our planetary system. The 
mechanical theory of the planetary motions discovered by Newton teaches, 
that if a solid body in absolute vacuo, attracted by the sun, move around 
him in the same manner as the planets, this motion will endure unchanged 
through all eternity. 

Now we have actually not only one, but several such planets, which move 
around the sun, and by their mutual attraction create little changes and dis- 
turbances in cach other’s paths. Nevertheless Laplace, in his great work, the 
Meéeanique Céleste, has proved that in our planetary system all these disturb- 
ances increase and diminish periodically, and can never exceed certain limits, 
so that by this cause the eternal existence of the planetary system is unen- 
dangered. 

But Ihave already named two assumptions which must be made: first, 
that the celestial spaces must be absolutely empty ; and secondly, that the 
sun and planets mast be solid bodies. The first is at least the case as far as 
astronomical observations reach, for they have never been able to detect any 
retardation of the planets, such as would occur if they moved in a resisting 
medium. But ona body of less mass, the comet of Encke, changes are ob- 
served of such a nature: this comet describes ellipses round the sun which 
are becoming gradually smaller. If this kind of motion, which certainly 
corresponds to that through a resisting medium, be actually due to the 
existence of such a medium, a time will come when the comet will strike 
the sun; and a similar end threatens all the planets, although after a time, 
the length of which baffles our imagination to conceive of it. But even 
should the existence of a resisting medium appear doubtful to us, there is no 
doubt that the planets are not wholly composed of solid materials which are 


inseparably bound together. Signs of the existence of an atmosphere are 


observed on the Sun, on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Signs of water 
and ice upon Mars; and our earth has undoubtedly a fluid portion on its 
surface, and perhaps a still greater portion of fluid within it. The motions 
of the tides, however, produce friction, all friction destroys vis viva, and the 
loss in this case can only affect the vis viva of the planetary system. We 
come thereby to the unavoidable conclusion, that every tide, although with 
infinite slowness, still with certainty, diminishes the store of mechanical 
force of the system ; and as a consequence of this, the rotation of the planets 
in question round their axes must become more slow, they must therefore 


12* 


138 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


approach the sun, or their satellites must approach them. What length of 
time must pass before the length of our day is diminished one second by the 
action of the tides cannot be calculated, until the height and time of the tide 
in all portions of the ocean are known. This alteration, however, takes 
place with extreme slowness, as is known by the consequences which La- 
place has deduced from the observations of Hipparchus, according to which, 
during a period of 2000 years, the duration of the day has not been shortened 
by the one three hundredth part of a second. The final consequence would 
be, but after millions of years, if in the mean time the ocean did not become 
frozen, that one side of the earth would be constantly turned towards the sun, 
and enjoy a perpetual day, whereas the opposite side would be involved in 
eternal night. Such a position we observe in our moon with regard to the 
earth, and also in the case of the satellites as regards their planets; it is, 
perhaps, due to the action of the mighty ebb and flow to which these bodies, 
in the time of their fiery fluid condition, were subjected. 

I would not have brought forward these conclusions, which again plunge 
us in the most distant future, if they were not unavoidable. Physico-me- 
chanical laws are, as it were, the telescopes of our spiritual eye, which can 
penetrate into the deepest night of time, past and to come. 

Another essential question as regards the future of our planetary sys- 
tem has reference to its future temperature and illumination. As the in- 
ternal heat of the earth has but little influence on the temperature of the 
surface, the heat of the sun is the only thing which essentially affects the 
question. The quantity of heat falling from the sun during a given time 
upon a given portion of the earth’s surface may be measured, and from this 
it can be caleulated how much heat in a given time is sent out from the en- 
tire sun. Such measurements have been made by the French physicist 
Pouillet, and it has been found that the sun gives out a quantity of heat per 
hour equal to that which a layer of the densest coal ten feet thick would give 
out by its combustion; and hence in a year a quantity equal to the com- 
bustion of a layer of seventeen miles. If this heat were drawn uniformly 
from the entire mass of the sun, its temperature would only be diminished 
thereby one and one third of a degree centigrade per year, assuming its 
capacity for heat to be equal to that of water. These results can give us an 
idea of the magnitude of the emission, in relation to the surface and mass of 
the sun; but they cannot inform us whether the sun radiates heat as a glow- 
ing body, which since its formation has its heat accumulated within it, or 
whether a new generation of heat by chemical processes takes place at the 
sun’s surface. At all events the law of the conservation of force teaches us 
that no process analogous to those known at the surface of the earth, can 
supply for eternity an inexhaustible amount of light and heat to the sun. 
But the same law also teaches that the store of force at present existing, as 
heat, or as what may become heat, is sufficient for an immeasurable time. 
With regard to the store of chemical force in the sun, we can form no con- 
jecture, and the store of heat there existing can only be determined by very 
uncertain estimations. If, however, we adopt the very probable view, that 
the remarkably small density of so large a body is caused by its high tem- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 139 


perature, and may become greater in time, it may be calculated that if the 
diameter of the sun were diminished only the ten-thousandth part of its 
present length, by this act a sufficient quantity of heat would be generated 
to cover the total emission for 2100 years. Such a small change besides 
it would be difficult to detect even by the finest astronomical observa- 
tions. 

Indeed, from the commencement of the period during which we possess 
historic accounts, that is, for a period of about 4000 years, the temperature 
of the earth has not sensibly diminished. From these old ages we have 
certainly no thermometric observations, but we have information regarding 
the distribution of certain cultivated plants, the vine, the olive tree, which 
are very sensitive to changes of the mean annual temperature, and we find 
that these plants at the present moment have the same limits of distribution 
that they had in the times of Abraham and Homer ; from which we may in- 
fer backwards the constancy of the climate. 

In opposition to this it has been urged, that here in Prussia the German 
knights in former times cultivated the vine, cellared their own wine and 
drank it, which is no longer possible. From this the conclusion has been 
drawn, that the heat of our climate has diminished since the time referred 
to. Against this, however, Dove has cited the reports of ancient chroniclers, 
according to which, in some peculiarly hot years, the Prussian grape pos- 
sessed somewhat less than its usual quantity of acid. The fact also speaks 
not so much for the climate of the country as for the throats of the German 
drinkers. 

But even though the force store of our planetary system is so immensely 
great, that by the incessant emission which has occurred during the period 
of human history it has not been sensibly diminished, even though the 
length of the time which must flow by, before a sensible change in the state 
of our planetary system occurs, is totally incapable of measurement, still the 
inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that this store of force, which can only 
suffer loss and not gain, must be finally exhausted. Shall we terrify our- 
selves by this thought? Men are in the habit of measuring the greatness 
and the wisdom of the universe by the duration and the profit which it 
promises to their own race ; but the past history of the earth already shows 
what an insignificant moment the duration of the existence of our race upon 
it constitutes. A Nineveh vessel, a Roman sword awakes in us the concep- 
tion of gray antiquity. What the museums of Europe show us of the re- 
mains of Egypt and Assyria we gaze upon with silent astonishment, and 
despair of being able to carry our thoughts back to a period so remote. 
Still must the human race have existed for ages, and multiplied itself be- 
fore the pyramids of Nineyeh could have been erected. We estimate the 
duration of human history at 6000 years ; but immeasurable as this time may 
appear to us, what is it in comparison with the time during which the earth 
carried successive series of rank plants and mighty animals, and no men; 
during which in our neighborhood the amber-tree bloomed, and dropped its 
costly gum on the earth and in the sea; when in Siberia, Europe and North 
America groves of tropical palms flourished ; where gigantic lizards, and 


140 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


after them elephants, whose mighty remains we still find buried in the earth, 
found a home? Different geologists, proceeding from different premises, 
have sought to estimate the duration of the above creative period, and vary 
from a million to nine million years. And the time during which the earth 
generated organic beings is again small when we compare it with the ages 
during which the world was a ball of fused rocks. For the duration of its 
cooling from 2,000° to 200° centigrade, the experiments of Bishop upon 
basalt show that about 350 millions of years would be necessary, And with 
regard to the time during which the first nebulous mass condensed into our 
planetary system, our most daring conjectures must cease. The history of 
man, therefore, is but a short ripple in the ocean of time. Fora much 
longer series of years than that during which man has already occupied this 
world, the existence of the present state of inorganic nature favorable to the 
duration of man seems to be secured, so that for ourselves and for long gen- 
erations after us, we have nothing to fear. But the same forces of air and 
water, and of the volcanic interior, which produced former geological revo- 
lutions, and buried one series of living forms after another, act still upon the 
earth’s crust. They more probably will bring about the last day of the 
human race than those distant cosmical alterations of which we have spcken, 
and perhaps force us to make way for new and more complete living forms, 
as the lizards and the mammoth have given place to us and our fellow- 
creatures which now exist. 

Thus the thread which was spun in darkness by those who sought a per- 
petual motion has conducted us to a universal law of nature, which radiates 
light into the distant nights of the beginning and of the end of the history of 
the universe. To our own race it permits a long but not an endless exist- 
ence; it threatens it with a day of judgment, the dawn of which is still hap- 
pily obscured. As each of us singly must endure the thought of his death, 
the race must endure the same. But above the forms of life gone by, the 
human race has higher moral problems before it, the bearer of which it is, 
and in the completion of which it fulfils its destiny. 


IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEMS. 


The following paper on “ impossible problems,” published during the past 
year by the well known mathematician, De Morgan, presents some points 
of novelty and scientific interest : 

When we find a long and enduring discussion about any points of 
speculation, we naturally ask whether there be not some verbal difficulty at 
the bottom. What is the solution of a problem? It is the showing how to 
arrive at a desired result, under prescribed conditions to the means which are 
to be used, and as to the form in which the result is to be presented. There 
are then three possibilities of impossibility. The desired result may be 
among non-existing things; the prescribed conditions may be insufficient ; 
the form demanded may be necessarily unattainable. And any one of these 
things being really the case, it may be impossible to demonstrate that it is the 
case. Human nature, which always assumes that it can know whatever can 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 141 


be known, must bear to be told that this assumption may be one of its little 
mistakes, or may be atrue exposition of its own powers, and may be a 
matter on which no certainty can be arrived af. 

In prescribing conditions of solution, and form of result, we dictate to ex- 
istence ; we determine that our mental nature shall be so constructed that 
we shall know beforehand what means are wanted, and what form the result 
shall appear in, the matter being one on which the very necessity of propos- 
ing the problem shows our ignorance. And when we fail, we quarrel with 
the universe, as Porson did, when he proposed to himself the problem of 
taking up the candlestick, his condition being that in which two images of 
objects appear, one the consequences of the laws of light, the other what a 
psychologist would perhaps call purely subjective. He accordingly handled 
the wrong image, which of course did not prevent his fingers from meeting. 
Incensed at this, he exclaimed, “D the nature of things!” He had 
better have attended to preliminaries under which so simple a problem might 
have been solved without a quadratic equation. 

Undoubtedly the dictation of conditions and of form has been attended with 
the most advantageous results. Abundance of possibles have been turned 
up in digging for impossibles. Alchemy invented chemistry ; astrology 
greatly improved astronomy; the effort to find a certainty of winning in 
gambling nurtured the science under which insurance is safe and intelligible, 
and the inscrutable inquiry into ens quatenus ens, so properly placed peta Ta 
gvoixa, has added much to our powers of investigating homo quatenus homo. 

There was a separate dictation of conditions in arithmetic and in geome- 
try. In arithmetic, the simple definite number or fraction, the earliest ob- 
ject of our attention, was declared to be the universal mode of expression. 
It was prescribed to the circle that it should be, in circumference, a definitely 
expressible derivation from the diameter ; it was demanded of the nature of 
things that by cutting the circumference into a certain number of equal parts, 
a certain number of those parts should give the diameter; and vice versa. 

In geometry, Euclid laid down, as his prescribed instruments, the straight 
line and circle. Of all the infinite number of lines which exist, he would 
use none except the straight line and circle. It was demanded of the nature 
of things that it should be possible to construct a square equal to a given 
circle, without the use of any curve except the circle. 

The second demand was not quite so impudent as the first. It was soon 
discovered and proved that there is no square root to 2, as a definite fraction 
ofaunit. That is, there is nothing but an interminable series of decimals, 
EAQISS 2s ws ; by help of which we discover the square root of frac- . 
tions within any degree of nearness to 2 we please. And yet, with such a 
result as this known to all, it was thought the most reasonable thing in the 
world to demand that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter should 
be that of number to number. 

I will now speak of several problems of popular interest. 

1. The three bodies. This is the problem of determining the motion of a 
planet attracted, not only by the sun, but by another planet. In the early 
days of the integral calculus, it was demanded of the nature of things that 


142 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


all deferential equations should be soluble in what are called finite terms, that 
is by a definite number of algebraical, etc., terms consisting of our usual 
modes of expression. Mathematicians had not then opened their eyes to the 
fact that there exists an unlimited number of modes of expression of which 
those we employ cannot give an idea, except by interminable series. <Ac- 
cordingly, they considered the problem of three bodies unsolved so long as 
it was necessary to have recourse to these interminable series. But is this 
problem unsolved, in any other sense than this, that the nature of things has 
not listened to human dictation on matters which humanity knew nothing 
about? Do we not find the moon’s place within a fraction of a second of 
time, by the existing solution? And did not Adams and Leyerrier even 
solve the inverse problem, Given the effect produced upon a known planet 
by an unknown planet, to discover the place of the unknown planet? There 
are hundreds of problems, in pure and mixed mathematics both, which are 
treated only by interminable series, and which no one ever complained of as 
not being solved. The difference is this: we speak of these problems in the 
language of the newer day; we speak of the problem of the three bodies 
after the tradition of an older day. 

It is not practicable, that is, it has not been found practicable, to prove the 
impossibility of solving the problem of three bodies without interminable 
series. But along chain of cogent analogies convinces every one who has 
gone through them, with full moral evidence, that the finite terms must be 
terms of a kind of which we have at present no conception. 

2. The Perpetual motion. — This is a problem of a very different kind. 
The purse of Fortunatus, which could always drop a penny out, though 
never a penny was put in, is a problem of the same kind. He who can con- 
struct this purse may construct a perpetual motion ; in this way. Let him 
hang the purse upside down, and with the stream of pence which will flow 
out, let him buy a strong steam engine, and pay for keeping it at work day 
and night. Have a new steam-engine ready to be set in motion by the old 
one at its last gasp, and so on to all eternity. A perpetual motion demands 
of the nature of things a machine which shall always communicate momen- 
tum in the doing of some work, without ever being fed with any means-col- 
lecting momentum. It could be compassed, in a certain way, —that is, by 
retaining the work done to do more work, which again should be more, and 
so on, —if friction and other resistances could be abolished, and nothing 
thrown away. In this way the fall of a ton of water from a reservoir might 
be employed in pumping up as much water into another reservoir, which, 
when landed, if it be lawful to say so of water, might, by its subsequent fall, 
pump up an equal quantity into the original reservoir, and so on, backwards 
and forwards, in secula seculorum. But not a drop must be wasted, whether 
by adhesion to the reservoir, by evaporation, by splashing, or in any way 
whatever. Every drop that falls down must be made to raise another drop 
to the same height. So long as the sockets have friction, or the air resists, 
this is impossible. In fact, matter, with respect to momentum, has the 
known qualities of a basket with respect to eggs, butter, garden-stuff, etc. 
No more can come out than was put in; and every quantity taken out re- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 1438 


quires as much more to be put in before the original state is restored. So 
soon as the law of matter is as clearly known as the law of the basket, there 
is an end of looking for the perpetual motion. 

That people do try after a perpetual motion to this day is certain. A 
good many years ago a perpetual motion company was in contemplation ; 
and the promoters did me the unsolicited honor of putting my name on the 
list of directors. Fortunately the intention came round to me before the list 
was circulated ; and a word to the editor of a periodical produced an article 
which, I believe, destroyed the concern. The plan was to put a drum or 
broad wheel with one verticle half in mercury and the other in vacuum. 
This instrument, the most unlucky drum since Parolles, feeling the balance 
of its two halves very unsatisfactory, was to go round and round in search 
of an easy position, forever and ever, working away all the time, —I mean 
all the eternity, — at lace-making, or water-pumping, or any other useful 
employment. People were told that if they would sell their steam engines 
for old iron, they might buy new machines with the money, which would 
work as long as they held together without costing a farthing for fuel. Cer- 
tainly, had the scheme been proposed to me, I should have declined to join 
until I had derived assurance from seeing the donkey who originated it 
turned into a head-over-heels perpetual motion by tying a heavy weight to 
his tail and an exhausted receiver to his nose. 

8. Quadrature of the circle. —The arithmetical quadrature involves the de- 
termination of the circumference by a definite arithmetical multiplier, which 
shall be perfectly accurate. Lambert proved that the multiplier must be an 
interminable decimal fraction; and the proof may be found in Legendre’s 
geometry, and in Brewster’s translation of that work. The arithmeticians 
have given plenty of approximate multipliers. The last one, and the most 
accurate of all, was published a few years ago by Mr. W. Shanks, of 
Houghton-le-Spring, a calculator to whom multiplication is no vexation, 
ete. He published the requisite multiplier (which mathematicians denote by 
_m) to six hundred and seven decimal places, of which 441 were verified by 
Dr. Rutherford. To give an idea of the power of this multiplier, we must 
try to master such a supposition as the following. 

There are living things on our globe so small that, if due proportion were 
observed, the corpuscles of their blood would be no more than a millionth 
of an inch in diameter. Suppose another globe like ours, but so much 
larger that our great globe itself, is but fit to be a corpuscle in the blood of 
one of its animalcules; and call this the first globe aboveus. Let there be 
another globe so large that this first globe above us is but a corpuscle in the 
animalcule of that globe; and call this the second globe above us. Go on 
in this way till we come to the twentieth globe above us. Next, let the 
minute corpuscle on our globe be another globe like ours, with everything in 
proportion ; and call this the first globe below us. Take a blood-corpuscle 
from the animalcule of that globe, and make it the second globe below us; 
and so on, down to the twentieth globe below us. Then if the inhabitants 
of the twentieth globe above us were to calculate the circumference of their 
globe from its diameter by the 607 decimals, their error of length could not 


144 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


be made visible to the inhabitants of the twentieth globe below us, unless 
their microscopes were relatively very much more powerful than ours. 

By the geometrical quadrature is meant the determination of a square 
equal to the circle, using only Euclid’s allowance of means; that is, using 
only the straight line and circle asin Euclid’s first three postulates. On this 
matter, James Gregory, in 1668, published an asserted demonstration of the 
impossibility of the geometrical quadrature. ‘The matter is so difficult, and 
proofs of a negative so slippery, that mathematicians are rather shy of pro- 
nouncing positive opinions. Montucla, in the first edition of the work pre- 
sently mentioned, only ventured to say that it was very like demonstration. 
In the second edition, after further reflection, he gave his opinion that the 
point was demonstrated. I read James Gregory’s tract many years ago, and 
left off with an impression that probably more attentive consideration would 
compel me to agree with its author. But he would be a bold man who 
would be very positive on the point ; even though there are trains of reason- 
ing, different from Gregory’s, which render it in the highest degree improb- 
able, which are in fact all but demonstration themselves, that the geometrical 
quadrature is impossible. 

To say that a given problem cannot be solved, because two thousand 
years of trial have not succeeded, is unsafe; far more powerful means may 
be invented. But when the question is to solve a problem with certain given 
means and no others, it is not so unsafe to affirm that the problem is insolu- 
ble. By hypothesis, we are to use no means except those which have been 
used for two thousand years ; it becomes exceedingly probable that all which 
those means can do has been done, in a question which has been tried by 
hundreds of men of genius, patience and proved success in other things. 

4. Trisection of the Angle.—'The question is to cut any given angle into 
three equal parts, with no more assistance than is conceded in Euclid’s first 
three postulates. It is well known that this problem depends upon repre- 
senting geometrically the three roots of a cubic equation which has all its 
roots real: whoever can do either can do the other. Now the geometrical 
solution, as the word geometrical is understood, of a cubic equation, has 
never been attained; and all the @ priori considerations which have so much 
force with those who are used to them are in favor of the solution being im- 
possible. A person used to algebraic geometry cannot conceive how, by in- 
tersections of circles and straight lines, a problem should be solved which 
has three answers, and three only. 

To sum up the whole. The problem of the three bodies has such solution 
as hundreds of other problems have; approximate in character, but wanting 
only pains and patience to carry the approximation to any desired extent. 
The problem of the perpetual motion is a physical absurdity. The arith- 
metical quadrature of the circle has been proved impossible in finite terms, 
but 607 decimal places of the interminable series have been found, and 441 
of them verified. Of the geometrical quadrature an asserted proof of im- 
possibility exists, which no one who has read it ventures to gainsay, but in 
favor of which no one speaks very positively. The trisection of the angle 
has no alleged proof of its impossibility. But were this the proper place, an 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 145 


account might be given of those considerations which lead all who have 
thought much on the subject to feel sure that the difficulty arises from the 
restrictions placed upon the means of solution amounting to a little too much 
dictation to the nature of things. For it must be remembered that the prob- 
lem is not to square the circle, nor to trisect the angle, but to square the 
circle or trisect the angle without recourse to any means except those 


, afforded by Euclid’s first three postulates. This limitation is frequently 


omitied ; and persons are led to conclude that mathematicians have never 
shown how to square a circle, or to trisect an angle, than which nothing can 
be more untrue. J may take occasion to raise a query in some future com- 
munication, whether these difficulties would ever have existed if Euclid’s 
ideas of solid geometry had been as well arranged as his ideas of plane 
geometry. 

The reader may find details on this subject in the articles QUADRATURE 
and TRIsECTION in the Penny Cyclopedia. But further information will 
be found in Montucla’s Histoire des Récherches sur la Quadrature du Cercle, 
Paris, 1831, 8vo. (second edition), This work contains, besides the vagaries 
of the insufficiently informed, an account of the attempts of older days, 
which ended in useful discovery. In later times the whole subject has 
lapsed into burlesque ; the few who have made rational attempts being lost 
in the crowd who have made absurd misconceptions of the problem. To 
square the circle has become a byword, though many do not know the prob- 
lem under a change of terms, say the rectification of the circumference. 

And so much for the impossible problems, which have caught so many in- 
genious minds, and almost always held them tight. For this reason, I should 
advise any one not to try them. 


SCHONBEIN’S ELECTRICAL PAPER. 


By a process similar to that used in the preparation of gun-cotton, Schon- 
bein has succeeded in converting paper into a perfectly transparent sub- 
stance, which, by the slightest friction, becomes extraordinarily electrified, 
and which he employed in the construction of an electrical machine. 

Such a substance must be in the highest degree acceptable to the experi- 
mental physicist, and it is so much the more to be regretted that Schonbein 
and Bottger have published nothing further on this subject, although elec- 
trical paper is now offered for sale in Berlin. In most cases the electrical 
paper can be replaced by thin sheets of gutta percha. 


SIMPLE ELECTRIC MACHINE. 


M. Thore united the ends of a strip of paper about eight inches in width, 
so as to make a continuous band of it, and stretched it on two wooden pul- 
leys covered with silk, one of which was rapidly turned around by a handle; 
the electricity was developed by pressing a warmed flat-iron upon the paper 
as it passed over one of the pulleys. He describes the effects as remarkable. 

There is nothing new in the observation of the electricity developed by 
paper, and many of our machinists have noticed how often the bands of their 


13 


146 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


machinery became electrically charged. But the apparatus is simple and 
cheap, and capable of working under atmospheric conditions which arrest the 


action of our ordinary machines. 


ELECTRIC CONDUCTING POWERS OF THE METALS OF THE ALKA- 
LIES AND ALKALINE EARTHS. 

Dr. A. Matthiessen has made, under the direction of Prof. Kirchhoff, 
of Heidelberg, a series of experiments on this subject, the method of per- 
- forming which is fully described in the London, Edinburgh and Dublin 
Philosophical Magazine, for February. The following are the results. The 
temperatures are in centigrade degrees. 

The conducting power of silver at 0° being = 100. 


That of Sodium at 21-°°7 = 37:48 
Magnesium 17: = 2547 
Calcium 168 = 22:14 
Potassium 20-4 = 20°85 
Lithium 20- = 19:00 
Strontium 20: == 6: TL 


The potassium and sodium used, were commercial; the others were ob- 
tained electrotypically. Experiments were also made, and are reported 
in the original paper, on the variation of the conducting power by heat. 

In these results an interesting fact was observable, namely, that at some 
distance from the point of fusion, as well in the liquid as in the solid state, 
the decrements in the conducting power with the increase of temperature 
were almost in proportion, but near the point of fusion the decrease in the 
conducting power became much more rapid; with sodium this change ap- 
pears to be very sudden, whereas with potassium it seems gradual. This 
difference in these metals corresponds with their different behavior in fusion ; 
namely, potassium does not become suddenly liquid like sodium, but first 
passes through a semi-fluid state. 


SIMULTANEOUS AND OPPOSITE ELECTRIC CURRENTS IN THE SAME 
- WIRE. 


M. Petrina has investigated this disputed phenomenon by means of the 
reduction of temperature which Peltier discovered to take place when an 
electric current passes from bismuth to antimony. A metallic bar of these 
two metals soldered together in the middle, was introduced into the bulb of 
an air-thermometer, and divided currents from the same battery carefully 
equalized, were passed through it in opposite directions. In this case, if no 
current passes, no effect should be produced; but if both pass, since the 
cooling effects are known to be much less than the heat produced by the 
same current when passing in the opposite direction, the thermometer should 
indicate such heat. In fact, no effect was produced when the currents were 
equalized, and when they were allowed to be unequal, the heat was that due 
to the difference of the currents. — Cosmos. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 147 


ON SOME NEW METHODS OF PRODUCING AND FIXING ELECTRICAL 
FIGURES. 

From certain experiments recently made by Mr. W. R. Grove, published 
in the Philosophical Magazine, the way appears to be opening for new ap- 
plications of electricity, and for investigations rich in promise alike to 
science and art. It was known years ago to some of the German savans, 
that a coin or medal placed on a smooth vitreous or metallic surface and 
electrized, would leave impressions on that surface which became visible 
when breathed on. From the latter peculiarity they were called “ roric 
figures ;” and attempis were made to fix them by exposure to vapor of mer- 
eury or iodine, but without success. Where the Germans failed, Mr. Grove 
has succeeded : “ Believing as I have for many years,”’ he says, “ that elec- 
tricity is nothing else than motion or change in matter, a force and not a 
fluid, Ihave made experiments to ascertain whether similar effects take 
place in cases where electrical light is visible upon insulated surfaces only.” 

We give a brief sketch of the experiments, adopting Mr. Grove’s descrip- 
tion where it suits our purpose. Two plates of window-glass, about three 
inches square, were dipped in nitric acid, then washed, and dried with a 
clean silk handkerchief, and coated on the outside with pieces of tinfoil a 
little smaller than the glass. A piece of printed hand-bill was laid between 
the plates thus prepared; the tinfoil coatings were connected with the 
secondary terminals of Ruhmkorff’s coil, and removed afier a few minutes’ 
electrization. Now, “the interior surface of the glass when breathed on, 
showed with great beauty the printed words, which had been opposite it, 
these appearing as though etched on the glass, or having a frosted appear- 
ance; even the fibres of the paper were beautifully brought out by the 
breath, but nothing beyond the margin of the tinfoil.” These impressions 
were fixed by holding them over hydrofluoric acid, — powdered fluor spar 
and sulphuric acid slightly warmed in a leaden dish. 

“Tnow cut out of thin white letter-paper,’ proceeds Mr. Grove, “ the 
word Volta, and placed it between the plates of glass. They were submit- 
ted to electrization as before, and the interior surface of one of them, without 
the paper letters, was subsequently exposed in the hydrofluoric acid vapor ; 
the previously invisible figures came out perfectly, and formed a permanent 
and perfectly accurate etching of the word Volta, as complete as if it had 
been done in the usual mode by an etching ground. This, of course, could 
be washed and rubbed to any extent without alteration; and the results 
obtained give every promise for those who may pursue this as an art, of pro- 
ducing very beautiful effects, enabling even fine engravings to be copied on 
glass, etc.” 

A plate on which the invisible image was impressed, was immersed in a 
bath of nitrate of silver, in the usual manner as for a photograph. “It was 
then held opposite a window for a few seconds, and taken back into the 
_darkened room; and on pouring over it a solution of pyrogallic acid, the 
word Volta, and the border of the glass-beyond the limits of the tinfoil, were 
darkened, and came out with perfect distinctness, the other parts of the glass 


% 


148 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


having been, as it were, protected by electrization from the action of light. 
The figures were permanently fixed by a strong solution of hyposulphate of 
soda.” 


ON A NEW METHOD OF OBSERVING ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 


At the British Association for 1856, Professor W. Thomson gave the fol- 
lowing description of a method of observing atmospherical electricity, em- 
ployed by Mr. Dellman, of Crenznach, Prussia, Mr. D. being employed 
by the government to make meteorological observations. It consists in using 
a copper ball about six inches diameter, to carry away an electrical effect 
from a position about two yards above the roof of his house, depending 
simply on the atmospheric ‘‘ potential ”’ at the point to which the centre of 
the ball is sent; and it is exactly the method of the “carrier ball” by which 
Faraday investigated the atmospheric potential in the neighborhood of a 
rubbed stick of shell-lac, and other electrified bodies (“‘ Experimental Re- 
searches,” series ix, 1839.) The whole process only differs from Faraday’s 
in not employing the carrier ball directly, as the repeller in a coulomb-elec- 
trometer, but putting it into communication with the conductors of a sepa- 
rate electrometer of peculiar construction. ‘The collecting part of the ap- 
paratus is so simple and easily managed that an’ amateur could, for a few 
shillings, set one up on his own house, if at all suitable as regards roof and 
windows; and, if provided with a suitable electrometer, could make obser- 
vations in atmospheric electricity with as much ease as thermometric or ba- 
rometric observations. ‘The electrometer used by Mr. Dellman is of his own 
construction (described in Poggendorff’s ‘ Annalen,’’ 1853, vol. 89, also 
vol. 85), and appears to be very satisfactory in its operation. It is, I be- 
lieve, essentially more accurate and sensitive than Peltier’s, and it has a 
great advantage in affording a very easy and exact method for reducing its 
indications to absolute measure. I wish also to suggest two other modes of 
observing atmospheric-electricity which have occurred to me, as .possessing 
each of them some advantages over any of the systems hitherto followed. 
In one of these I propose to have an uninsulated cylindrical iron funnel, 
«bout seven inches diameter, fixed to a height of two or three yards above 
the highest part of the building, and a light, movable continuation (like the 
telescope funnel of a steamer) of a yard and a half or two yards more, 
which can be let down or pushed up at pleasure. Insulated by supports at 
the top of the fixed part of the funnel, I would have a metal stem carrying 
a ball like Dellman’s, standing to such a height that it can be covered by a 
hinged lid on the top of the movable joint of the funnel, when the latter is 
pushed up ; and a fine wire fixed to the lower end of the insulated stem, and 
hanging down, in the axis of the funnel to the electrometer. When the ap- 
paratus is not in use, the movable joint would be kept at the highest, and 
its lid down, touching the ball so as to keep it uninsulated. To make an 
observation, the lid would be turned up rapidly, and the movable joint car- 
rying it let down, an operation which could be effected in a few seconds by a 
suitable mechanism. ‘The electrometer would immediately indicate an in- 
ductive electrification simply proportional to the atmospheric potential at 


> 
z 
2 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 


the position occupied by the centre of the ball, and would continue to -indi- 
cate at each instant the actual atmospheric potential, however variable, as 
long as no sensible electrification or diselectrification has taken place through 
imperfect insulation or convection by particles of dust or currents of air 
(probably for a quarter or a half of an hour, when care is taken to keep the 
insulation in good order). This might be the best form of apparatus for 
making observations in the presence of thunder-clouds. But I think the best 
possible plan in most respects, if it turns out to be practicable, of which I 
can have little doubt, will be to use, instead of the ordinary fixed insulated, 
conductor with a point, a fixed conductor of similar form, but hollow, and 
containing within itself an apparatus for making hydrogen, and blowing 
small soap-bubbles of that gas from a fine tube terminating as nearly as may 
be in a point, at a height of a few yards in the air. With this arrangement 
the insulation would only need to be good enough to make the loss of a 
charge by conduction very slow in comparison with convective loss by the 
bubbles, and it would be easy to secure against any sensible error from de- 
fective insulation. If one hundred or two hundred bubbles, each one-tenth 
of an inch in diameter, are blown from the top of the conductor per minute, 
the electrical potential in its interior will very rapidly follow variations of 
the atmospheric potential, and would be at any instant the same as the mean 
for the atmospheric during some period of a few minutes preceding. The 
action of a simple point is, (as I suppose, is generally admitted) essentially 
unsatisfactory, and as nearly as possible nugatory in its results. Iam not 
aware how flame has been found to succeed, but I should think not well in 
the circumstances of atmospheric observations, in which it is essentially 
closed in a lantern; and I cannot see on any theoretical ground how its 
action in these circumstances can be perfect, like that of the soap-bubbles. I 
intend to make a trial of the practicability of blowing the bubbles ; and if it 
proves satisfactory, there cannot be a doubt of the availability of the system 
for atmospheric observations. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE LIVING ELECTRIC FISHES AS MEDI- 
CAL SHOCK MACHINES. 


Prof. George Wilson, ina paper before the British Association, Dublin, 
stated that his attention had been incidentally directed to the employment 
of the living torpedo as a remedial agent by the ancient Greek and Romar 
physicians; and he now felt satisfied that a living fish was alike the earliest 
and the most familiar electric instrument employed by mankind. In proof 
of the antiquity of the practice he adduced the testimony of Galen, Diosco- 
rides, Scribonius, and Asclephiades, whose works proved that the shock of 
the torpedo had been used as a remedy in paralytic and neuralgic affections 
before the Christian era. A still higher antiquity had been conjecturally 
claimed for the electric silurus or malapterurus of the Nile, on the supposi- 
tion that its Arabic name, Raad, signifies thunder-fish, and implied a very 
ancient recognition of the identity in nature of the shock-giving power and 
the lightning force ; but the best Arabic scholars have pointed out that the 

io” : 


150 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


words for thunder (raad), and for the electric fish (ra’a’d), are different, and 
that the latter signifies the ‘‘causer of trembling,” or “ convulser,” so that 
there are no grounds for computing to the ancient Egyptians, or even to the 
Arabs, the identification of silurus-power with the electric force. In proof 
of the generality of the practice of the zoo-electric machine at the present , 
day, the writer referred to the remedial application of the torpedo by the 
Abyssinians, to that of the gymnotus by the South American Indians, and 
to that of the recently discovered electric fish (Malapterurus Beninensis) by 
the dwellers on the old Calabar River, which flows into the Bight of Benin. 
The native Calabar women were in the habit of keeping one or more of the 
fishes in a basin of water, and bathing their children in it daily, with a view 
to strengthen them by the shocks which they receive. ‘These shocks are cer- 
tainly powerful, for living specimens of the Calabar fish are at present in 
Edinburgh, and a single one gives a shock to the hand reaching to the 
elbow, or even to the shoulder. The usages referred to appear to have pre- 
vailed among the nations following them from time immemorial; so that 
they furnish proof of the antiquity as well as of the generality of the prac- 
tice under notice. The writer concluded by directing the attention of natur- 
alists to the probability of additional kinds of electric fish being discovered, 
and to the importance of ascertaining what the views of the natives familiar 
with them are in reference to the source of their power, and to their therapeu- 
tic employment. 

Sir J. Richardson stated, that there were not less than eleven genera of 
fishes known that had the power of giving electric shocks. There was one 
peculiarity in all these fishes, and that was the absence of scales. -In every 
one of them an apparatus had been discovered, which consisted of a series 
of galvanic cells, put in action by a powerful system of nerves. He read 
extracts from a letter from Dr. Baikie, now engaged in exploring the Niger, 
in which that gentleman stated that he had met with an electric fish in 
Fernando Po, and which Sir J. Richardson believed was identical with the 
Malapterurus, which had been described by Dr. Wilson, from the coast of 
Old Calabar. The natives called this fish the Tremble-fish. 


ON A NEW SOURCE OF ELECTRICAL EXCITATION. 


The following paper, by Mrs. Elisha Foot, was presented to the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of Science, at its last meeting : — 

I have ascertained that the compression or the expansion of atmospheric 
air produces an electrical excitation. So far as 1 am aware this has not been 
before observed, and it seems to me to have an important bearing in the ex- 
planation of several atmospheric and electrical phenomena. 

The apparatus used was an ordinary air pump of rather feeble power and 
adapted either to compress or exhaust the air. Its receiver was a glass 
tube about twenty-two inches in height and three in diameter, with its ends 
closed by brass caps cemented to it. At the bottom was a stop-cock and a 
screw by which it was attached to the air pump. To the top were soldered 
two copper wires, one hanging down within the tube, terminating in one or 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Lod 


more points, and extending to within about six inches of the bottom, the 
other extending from the upper side of the cap to an ordinary electrical 
condenser. 

In experimenting after compressing or exhausting the air within the re- 
ceiver, the wire reaching to the condenser was disconnected from it. The 
upper plate was lifted from its place by its glass handle, and its electrical con- 
dition tested by a gold leaf electrometer. I have found it convenient first to 
compress the air and close the stop-cock, when the condenser would be 
found to be charged with positive electricity. Then after discharging all 
traces of it both from the condenser and the wire leading to it, the air was 
allowed to escape, and the condenser would become recharged to an equal 
extent. 

My experiments with this apparatus have extended over about eight 
months, and I have found the action to bear a strong analogy to that of the 
electrical machine. In damp or warm weather little or no effect would be 
produced, whilst at other times, particularly in clear cold weather, the action 
would be so strong as to diverge the leaves of the electrometer to their 
utmost extent. In warm weather, when no action would be produced, I 
have attained the result by cooling the air artificially. A sudden expansion 
or contraction always increases the effect. 

The results with oxygen gas were similar, but I was not successful with 
either hydrogen or carbonic acid gases. 

It is believed that the results which have been obtained on a small scale 
in my experiments may be traced in the great operations of nature. The 
fluctuations of our atmosphere produce compressions and expansions suffi- 
cient to cause great electrical disturbances. Particularly should this be ob- 
served in the dry cold regions of our atmosphere above the effects of mois- 
ture and vapors ; and it was established by the experiments of Becquerel as 
well as those of Gay Lussac and Biot that the electricity of the atmosphere 
increases in strength with the altitude. 

A manifest relation, moreover, between the electricity of the atmosphere 
and the oscillations of the barometer has frequently been observed. Hum- 
boldt, treating upon the subject in his Cosmos, remarks among other things 
that the electricity of the atmosphere, whether considered in the lower or the 
upper strata of the clouds in its silent problematical diurnal course, or in the 
explosion of the lightning and thunder of the tempest, appears to stand ina 
manifold relation to the pressure of the atmosphere and its disturbances. 

The tidal movements of our atmosphere produce regular systematic com- 
pressions twice in twenty-four hours. These occur with so much regularity 
within the tropics, as observed by Humboldt, that the time of day is indi- 
cated within fifteen or twenty minutes by the state of the barometer. And 
Saussure observed a diurnal change in the electricity of the atmosphere cor- 
responding with the diurnal changes of the barometer. The electricity of 
the atmosphere, he observes, has therefore a daily period like the sea, in- 
creasing and decreasing twice in twenty-four hours. It, generally speaking, 
reaches its maximum intensity a few hours after sunrise and sunset, and de- 
scends again to its minimum before the rising and setting of that luminary. 


152 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


NEW LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR. 


At a recent meeting of the Franklin Institute, Mr. J. D. Rice presented a 
new design for Lightning Conductors. The conductor is formed of fluted 
tubes of copper, joined by screw sockets, the ends of the tubes abutting, so 
that the communication is complete. ‘The top is terminated, as in the most 
approved plans, with a single upright piatina point, surrounded by radiat- 
ing pointed copper wires, set at an angle with a vertical line. The object 
of the corrugations is, to present a greater surface in a less diameter, and to 
stiffen the material; they also give the conductor an ornamental appearance, 
which the generality of them do not possess. 


THEORY OF THE VOLTAIC PILE. 


During the thirty years in which the theory of the pile has been under dis- 
cussion, research has favored apparently at one time the chemical, and at 
another the contact theory. We are able now, as we believe, to announce 
that the discussion is closed. The chemical theory has definitely triumphed. 
As explained in the Traite d’Electricité Théorique et Pratique of De la 
Rive, this theory meets all difficulties and proves that if contact is often 
necessary for exciting electricity, it is not that which produces it; chemical 
actions are always the source. This learned physicist demonstrates that 
all chemical action causes a disengagement of electricity, whilst not a 
single experiment can be cited in which electricity is produced simply by 
contact. 

He reviews and explains all the alleged facts in favor of the theory of 
contact. He thus shows up the objection so often urged, that in order to 
displace by iron the copper of the sulphate of copper it is necessary to put 
the iron in contact with the saline solution, and that the chemical action 
begins only after the iron is covered with copper and when it has thus 
formed a voltaic couple. De la Rive first proves that in this experiment 
there is a voltaic couple which precedes that formed by the iron and by the 
displaced copper ; this couple is formed by the iron and the oxide of iron ad- 
hering to its surface or by iron and carbon or some other foreign body; for 
by using iron chemically pure and a surface perfectly clean, no precipitation 
of copper is obtained. 

No physicist is better fitted than De la Rive to undertake the delicate task 
of giving a theory of the pile. His studies as well as his discoveries lead 
him in this direction. 

De la Rive was the first who recognized the important fact that zine 
chemically pure is not attacked by hydrated sulphuric acid ; that two metals 
on which pure nitric acid, for example, has no action, such as gold or plat- 
inum, give not the slightest trace of a current when put to the extremity of 
a galvanometer and plunged into the nitric acid ; that on the contrary, they 
produce an instantaneous current when a drop of chlorohydric acid is added. 
The theory of contact has never yet explained this fact.— Silliman’s Journal. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. ae 


ON THE ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY OF COMMERCIAL COPPERS. 


The following is an abstract of an important paper recently presented to 
the Royal Society G. B., “on the electric conductivity of commercial cop- 
per of various kinds.” In measuring the resistances of wires manufactured 
for submarine telegraphs, the author was greatly surprised to find differences 
between different specimens, so great as most materially to affect their value 
in the electrical operations for which they are designed. It seemed at first 
that the process of twisting into wire rope, and covering with gutta percha 
to which some of the specimens had been subjected, may be looked to, to 
find the explanation of these differences. After, however, a careful exam- 
ination of copper wire strands, some covered, some uncovered, some var- 
nished with india-rubber, and some oxidized by ignition in a hot flame, it 
Was ascertained that none of these circumstances produced any influence on 
the whole resistance ; and it was found that the wire rope prepared for the 
Atlantic cable (No. 14, composed of seven No. 22 wires, and weighing al- 
together from 109 to 125 grains per foot) conducted about as well on the 
average as solid wire of the same mass, but in the larger collection of speci- 
mens which thus came to be tested still greater differences in conducting 
power were discovered than any previously observed. It appeared now 
certain that these differences were owing to different qualities of the copper 
wire itself, and it therefore became highly important to find how wire of the 
best quality could be procured. Accordingly four samples of simple No. 22 
wire, and of strand spun from it, distinguished according to the manufac- 
tories from which they were supplied, were next tested, and the ditferences 
of conducting power were found to be 100, 96°05, and 54:9. Two other 
samples, chosen at random, about ten days later, out of large stocks of wire 
supplied from the same manufactories, were tested with different instru- 
ments, and exhibited as nearly as could be estimated the same relative quali- 
ties. It seems, therefore, that there is some degree of constancy in the quality 
of wire supplied from the same manufactory, while there is vast superiority 
in the produce of some manufactories over that of others. ‘The great im- 
portance to shareholders in submarine telegraph companies, that only the 
best copper wire should be admitted for their use, is at once rendered ap- 
parent by the fact that a submarine telegraph constructed with copper wire 
having the conducting power of 100, and only one twenty-first of an inch in 
diameter, covered with gutta percha to a diameter of a quarter of an inch, 
would, with the same electrical power, and the same instruments, do more 
telegraphic work than one constructed with copper wire of one sixteenth of 
an inch diameter, having the conducting power of 54°9, covered with gutta 
percha to a diameter of a third of an inch. When the importance of the 
object is recognized, there can be little difficulty in finding how the best or 
nearly the best wire is to be uniformly obtained, seeing that all the speci- 
mens of two of the manufactories which have as yet been examined, have 
proved to be of the best, or little short of the best, quality, while those of 
other manufactories have been found inferior in nearly constant proportions. 
The cause of these differences in electrical quality is a question not only of 


154 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


much practical importance, but of high scientific interest. If chemical com- 
position is to be looked to for the explanation, very slight deviations from 
perfect purity must be sufficient to produce great effects on the electric con- 
ductivity of copper, the following being the results of an assay made on one 
of the specimens of copper wire of low conducting power : — 

. 


Copper ze iictiraseice tlestekiss Aeeein ye Giaeee ele oigdiernicene 99-7 
SMG EVE ca Dom chs azctnceiale sore se a Reyovgas ing as) sheds tapers sels rags tie yee inleceln-sunatare yal 
MOI ef forsiols ieveunie tose einer akeels saieheisisiersioie cies aoe enisite css 03 
MOT AMUINGHY. co n..'< aac Scarce seca Oates cia eareracee ote ‘OL 
100-00 


The entire stock of wire from which the samples experimented on were 
taken, has been supplied by the different manufactories as remarkably pure ; 
and being found satisfactory in mechanical qualities, had never been sus- 
pected to present any want of uniformity as to value for telegraphic purposes, 
until Professor Thomson discovered the difference in conductivity referred 
to in his paper. Experiments show that the greatest degree of brittleness 
produced by tension does not alter the conductivity of the metal by as much 
as one half per cent. Experiments also showed that no sensible effect was 
produced on the conductivity of copper by hammering it flat. The author 
has not yet been able to compare very carefully the resistances of single 
wires with those of strands spun from the same stock, but it is certain that 
any deficiency which the strand may present when accurately compared with 
solid wire, is nothing in comparison with the differences presented by differ- 
ent samples chosen at random from various stocks of solid wire and strand 
in the process of preparation for telegraphic purposes. 


ON THE ELECTRO-DYNAMIC INDUCTION MACHINE. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Professor Callan, of 
Maynooth College, presented the result of a long series of experiments on 
the electro-dynamic induction machine. The first of these results is a means 
of getting a shock directly from the armature of a magnet at the moment of 
its demagnetization, by using, not a solid piece of iron, but a coil of very 
fine insulated iron for the armature of an electro-magnet, between the poles 
of which the coil would fit. When the helix of the magnet is connected 
with a battery, the armature is magnetized on account of its proximity to 
the magnetized iron; and when the battery connection is broken, if the ends 
of the insulated iron wire be held in the hands, a shock will be felt. The 
second result is the discovery of the fact, that if iron wires be put into a coil 
of covered copper wire, the ends of which are connected with a battery, and 
if another coil be connected with the same battery, the quantity of electricity 
which will flow through the latter will be greater when the first coil is filled 
with iron wires than when they are removed. The third result is, a core for 
the primary coil, which consists of a coil of insulated iron wire, and which 
has five advantages over all the cores in common use. First, there is no 
complete circuit for any electrical current excited in any section of the core, 
because all the spirals of the coil are insulated from each other, and no ee 
returns to itself. In the common cores, even when the wires are covered 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Pa 


with thread, there is a complete circuit for every current induced in each sec- 
tion of every wire. Secondly, the currents in the various sections of the 
iron do not oppose each other; but the currents in each section of every 
wire are opposed by the currents flowing in the surrounding wires. ‘Thirdly, 
in the iron coil all the currents in the various spirals flow in the same direc- 
tion, and form one strong current, which may be used by connecting the 
ends of the coil with any body to which we wish to apply its force. But in 
the common cores all the currents in the sections of each wire remain within 
the wires, and cannot be used. Fourthly, the effect of the condenser on the 
currents produced in the iron core can be ascertained when an iron coil is 
used, but not with the common cores. By using an iron coil as a core, it is 
found that the condenser increases the intensity of the currents induced in 
the core. Fifthly, the ends of the iron coil, used as a core, may be connected 
with the coatings of a Leyden jar, and then the sparks from the coil are di- 
minished in length, but increased in brightness. By the use of cores consist- 
ing of coils of insulated iron wires, electrical currents of considerable quan- 
tity and intensity may be obtained. These currents of quantity and intensity 
may answer for working the Atlantic telegraph, and for producing the elec- 
tric light. Besides the cores just described, and the common core, Professor 
Callan used three other kinds of cores, viz: a flat or elliptical bundle of 
wires ; a core made by coiling uninsulated iron wire on an iron bar; and a 
core consisting ‘partly of a bundle of iron wire, and partly of a coil of insu- 
lated iron wire. The fourth result of his experiments is a new mode of in- 
sulation, in which imperfect insulation is used when imperfect insulation is 
sufficient, and perfect insulation is employed where such insulation is re- 
quired. The advantage of this mode of insulation is, that each spiral in the 
secondary coil is brought nearer to the other spirals, as well as to the primary 
coil and core, than it can ke in the common method of insulation, without 
at all diminishing the efficiency of the insulation. A coil in which the sec- 
ondary wire was iron, and insulated in the manner described, was shown to 
the meeting, which, with a single cell, six inches by four, gave sparks half 
an inch long without a condenser. The insulation of the large condensers 
made by Professor Callan, in which the acting metallic surface of each plate 
exceeded 600 square feet, gave way before the coil which he exhibited was 
made ; and, therefore, he could not say what the length of the sparks would 
be with the aid of a condenser. But were a condenser of the proper size to 
have the effect of increasing the sparks in a thirty-fold ratio, as in M. Gas- 
siot’s great coil, the length of the sparks produced by Professor Callan’s coil 
with a single cell should be fifteen inches. The outer diameter of the coil 
was about four inches, its length twenty inches, and the length of the second- 
ary coil about 21,000 feet. The fifth result is, a contact-breaker in which 
the striking parts are copper, and which acts as well as if they were platina. 
The sixth result is a mere explanation of the condenser, which is confirmed 


by the effect of the condenser on the electrical currents produced in the core. 


The last result consists in the discovery of some new facts relating to the 
condenser, from some of which it follows, that the ordinary mode of making 
the condenser is defective ; for condensers are generally made so that the 


156 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


entire surface of each of the metallic plates must act. But the condenser 
for every coil should be constructed in such a way that a small, or a con- 
siderable part, or the whole of the surface of each plate may be applied to 
the coil. For a large condenser which would make the effect of a coil ex- 
cited by a single cell less than it would be without a condenser, will increase 
the effect of the same coil when it is connected with a battery of ten or 
twelve cells. 


ON A MODIFIED FORM OF RUHMKORFF’S INDUCTION APPARATUS. 


Mr. E. 8. Ritchie of Boston, communicates to Silliman’s Journal the fol- 
lowing description of a modified form of Ruhmkorff’s induction apparatus 
of his own device. He says—The induction apparatus made by Ruhm- 
korff, is generally familiar. By it is obtained a spark of three-fourths of an 
inch through the atmosphere. Mr. Hearder has described in the London 
Philosophical Magazine, (November and December 1846,) certain improve- 
ments by which he has lengthened the spark to three inches. The great dif- 
ficulty experienced by him was in obtaining sufficient insulation between one 
stratum of the wire and the next above or below it, the entire thickness of 
the helix — including wire and insulation —beiag only about half an inch, 
and a tension of electricity sufficient to throw a spark three inches existing 
between the outer and inner strata. Mr. Stohrer has adopted the plan of 
dividing the coil into three divisions, thus lessening the difficulty ; still, 
great danger exists of the spark passing which would ruin the helix. I have 
endeavored to obviate this by winding the coil the entire thickness as it pro- 
gresses. I commenced with a glass tube or bobbin, laying the first course 
on a cone at as great an angle as the wire could be conveniently laid — say 
about fifty degrees. The diameter at the tube was about two and once half 
inches and the greatest diameter three and one half inches, the length of the 
cone being nearly half an inch. When the stratum was laid, and cemented 
by resin and bees-wax, a ring of thin vulcanized rubber was stretched over 
and cemented, the wire passed down to the glass cylinder, and this wire cov- 
ered also by rubber; then another stratum was laid in the same manner ; — 
that is, the coil is built up precisely as a cop is laid by a mule-spinner. 
The advantages are that the wire in each conical layer is very short, and 
only a slight tension can exist between them. 

With a helix thus made, with less than 7,000 feet of wire, I obtained a 
spark of two and one quarter inches ; and with one since constructed on the 
same principle, with 30,000 feet of wire, differing only so far as J found 
necessary to enable me to wind the helix by a machine which I constructed 
for the purpose, I have obtained sparks over six inches long. I have con- 
structed the condenser with oiled silk, with very thin gutta percha, and with 
paper of different thicknesses ; but find tissue paper varnished and used 
double, according to Mr. Bentley’s plan, the best.. The surfaces used in the 
instruments above described are respectively about thirty and seventy-five 
square feet. J have used all the interruptors alluded to by the writers above 
mentioned, but prefer one which I have made thus: The anvil is a wire or 
small rod of platinum secured in a plate by a binding-screw ; over this a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 157 


rod of platinum is secured in the same manner to a spring which presses 
them together; another spring loaded acts like a hammer upon the end 
of the first spring, to separate the platinum rods. A ratchet wheel presses 
down this spring hammer, and allows it to recoil and strike the other spring. 
By this the interruption is more instantaneously made, and the distance to 
which the platinum rods are separated easily regulated. This point appears 
to be of importance. The spark is lessened if the platinum rods are sepa- 
rated farther than actually to break their contact. The usual primary helix 
of large wire and the interior bundle of iron wires are placed within the glass 
tube. 

In my last instrument, I used a tube closed at the top, more effectually 
to cut off the passage of the current from one end to the other, through the 
primary helix or iron wires. I have used a Bunsen’s battery of four to six 
cells ; four give the spark of as great length, but a few more cells increase 
the volume. I have applied a battery of eighteen cells and also a plate bat- 
tery of fifty-six pairs without endangering the coil. The instrument is un# 
doubtedly capable of being greatly increased in size and power. 

Since writing the above, Mr. Ritchie further states: I have constructed 
a helix in which the plane of the strata of wires is perpendicular to the tube, 
insulated as before. With one of the same length of wire as the largest one 
before mentioned, — throwing a spark, with six cells, six inches, — I have 
used a battery of eighteen cells, (Bunsen’s); but by using a battery of three 
series of six cells (that is, an zntensity of six, and quantity of three), a very 
voluminous spark was obtained ; as the action soon became feeble, I took 
the secondary coil from the glass cylinder and found that the current had 
passed through the glass near each end of the coil, forming a circuit through 
the primary wire; two minute holes, of a hair’s breadth, from one-tenth to 
one-eighth inch diameter, were drilled through, but the glass was not frac- 
tured ; it also passed through several thicknesses of vulcanized rubber. The 
helix was uninjured, proving the insulation obtained by the mode of wind- 
ing it. A more perfect insulation. between the helices is readily made; and 
I now use a tube of gutta percha over the glass. With powerful batteries 
the condenser of varnished paper is not sufficient, as the current passes en- 
tirely through, and with such I use oiled silk. I have put several condens- 
ers in the same instrument, connecting each by turning a screw, so that 
either or all can be used. Varied and beautiful effects are produced, par- 
ticularly in vacuo, by using different amounts of surface of condenser. 

At an exhibition of this apparatus before the American Association at its 
last meeting, the various phenomena of electrical light, were developed with 
a splendor rarely if ever equalled. In a subsequent discussion, Professor 
Henry observed that the phenomena developed by this machine indicated 
that electricity is only a polarization of matter, all of which is capable of one 
of the two forms of polarization — one by friction and one by magnetism ; 
and the polarization of ponderable matter draws a line between electricity 
and magnetism, : 


14 


158 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


THE BATTERY OF THE PROPOSED ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH. 


When the Atlantic cable is in position at the bottom of the sea, telegraphic 
signals will be transmitted through it by induced magneto-electric currents, 
on account of the superior velocity this kind of electricity possesses over the 
ordinary voltaic current. These currents will be called forth by a somewhat 
complicated agency, the primary element in which will be a voltaic combina- 
tion of a very novel and ingenious kind, devised by Mr. Whitehouse. 

This battery, consisting of ten capacious cells, is made upon the Smee 
principle, so far as the adoption of platinized silver and zinc for its plates is 
concerned ; but it differs from every form of combination that has hitherto 
been in use, in having the plates of each cell so subdivided into subordinate 
portions, that any one of these may be taken away from the rest for the pur- 
pose of renewal or repair, without the action of the rest of the excited surface 
of the cell being suspended for a single moment. 

So long as a fair amount of attention is given to the renewal of its zine 
element piece-meal, it is indeed literally exhaustless and permanent. ‘This 
very desirable quality is secured by a singularly simple and ingenious con- 
trivance. The cell itself is formed of a quadrangular trough of gutta percha, 
wood-strengthened outside, in which dilute acid is contained, the proportion 
of acid to water being one part in fifteen or sixteen. There are grooves in 
the gutta percha, into which several metal plates slide in a vertical position. 
These plates are silver and zinc alternately, but they are not pairs of plates 
in an electrical sense. Each zine plate rests firmly at the bottom on a long 
bar of zine, which runs from end to end of the trough, and thus virtually 
unites the whole into one continuous extent of zinc, presenting not less than 
two thousand square inches of excitable surface to the exciting liquid. 
Each silver plate hangs in a similar way from a metallic bar, which runs 
from end to end of the trough above, the whole of the silver being thus vir- 
tually united into one continuous surface of equal extent to the face of the 
zine. The zine does not reach so high as the upper longitudinal bar, and 
the silver does not hang down so low as the inferior longitudinal bar. The 
battery is thus composed of a single pair of laminated plates, although to the 
eye it seems to be made up of several pairs of plates. Nature has set the 
example of arranging extended surface into reduplicating folds, when it is 
required that such surface shall be packed away in a narrow space at the 
same time that a large acting area is preserved, in the laminated antenns 
of the cockchafer. The antenne, indeed, are the types of the Whitehouse 
battery. If any one of these reduplicated segments of either kind of metal 
is removed, the remaining portion continues its action steadily, the effect 
merely being the same that would be produced if a fragment of an ordinary 
pair of plates were temporarily cut away. The silver lamina are of con- 
siderable thickness, and securely “platinated ”’ all over; that is, platinum is 
thrown down upon their surfaces in a compact metallic form, and not merely 
in the black pulverulent state; consequently, they are almost exempt from 
wear. Each zinc lamina is withdrawn so soon as its amalgamation is 
injuriously affected, or so soon as its own substance is mainly eaten away 


a NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 


by the action of the chemical menstruum in which it is immersed, and a 
freshly-amalgamated.. or new zinc lamina, is inserted into its place. ‘The 
capability of the piece-meal renewal of the consumptive element of the bat- 
tery in this ae and fragmentary way, is then the cause of its “ per- 
petual maintaining”? power. 

It may be added that one of these perpetual maintenance batteries has 
now been constantly at work for months in a large electrotyping office in 
London, and has thoroughly established its reputation for unparalleled 
steadiness, convenience and power. The battery is also unquestionably one 
of the most economical that has ever been set to work, considering the 
amount of service it is able to perform. Jt is calculated that the cost of main- 
taining the ten-celled battery in operation at the terminal stations on either side of 
the Atlantic, including all wear and tear, and consumption of material, will not 
exceed one shilling per hour. 

The flashes of light and crackling sparks produced on making and break- 
ing contact with the poles of this grand battery, are very undesirable pheno- 
mena in one particular. They are accompanied by a considerable waste of 
the metal of the pole. Each spark is really a considerable fragment of the 
metal absorbed into itself by the electrical agent, so to speak, and flown 
away with by it. When one of the poles of the battery is drawn two or three 
times along the sharp angle of an iron instrument, like a pair of pliers, the 
opposite end of the pliers being in contact with the other pole, the sharp 
angle is shaved away in the midst of a shower of sparks, just as if some 
irresistible and adamantine-toothed file had been carried along the same 
course. As the signals of the telegraph will be constantly made by making 
and breaking contact with the poles of the battery, these sparks would prove 
very costly and troublesome, eating away the material of the contact- key, 
and what is of more importance, very soon deranging its integrity and per- 
fection as a mechanical means of communication and transmission. The 
Electrician of the company has very nearly eliminated this difficulty by a 
contrivance of considerable ingenuity. First he arranged a set of twenty 
brass strings, something of the form and appearance of the keys of a musical 
instrument, in opposite pairs, so that a round horizontal bar, turning pivot- 
ways on its own centre, and flattened at the top, could lift by an edge either 
of the sets of ten springs, right or left, as it was turned. This enabled the 
contact to be distributed through the entire length of the edge, and breadth 
of the brass strings, and the course of the current to be reversed, accordingly 
as the right or left edge (the bar being worked by a crank handle) was raised 
to the right or left set of springs; the right set, it will be understood, being 
the representatives of one pole of the battery, and the left set of the other 
pole. By this arrangement four fifths of the spark were destroyed, simply 
on account of the large surface of metal, through which the electrical current 
had to pass when contact was completed. Still there remained enough to 
constitute a very undesirable residue. This was disposed of finally, after 
sundry tentative attempts, by coiling a piece of fine platinum wire, and plac- 
ing it in a porcelain vessel of water, and then leaving this fine platinum coil 
in constatit communication with the opposite poles. As much electricity as 


160 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


this little channel can accommodate, is constantly running through it from 
pole to pole, making it very hot, but it is kept from getting red-hot by the 
water in which it is immersed. The water is sustained at a boiling tempe- 
raiure to the relicf of the fine filament of heated metal. When contact is 
made or broken by the key, this subsidiary contrivance being in operation, 
the main body of the current passes through the key, and the slight leaking 
still goes on through the platinum wire, but no spark appears. The con- 
tact is entirely lightless and quiet. The spark is absorbed in the mainte- 
nance of the leak. There is a slight increased consumption of zine in the 
battery on account of this leak. The battery is always in subdued opera- 
tion, instead of being in absolute rest between the successive contacts made 
for the transmission of the currents. 

This battery, it is to be understood, is not to be uscd primarily in ope- 
rating the telegraph, but for exerting a magneto-electric current, which will 
be subsequently used for signalizing. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN GALVANIC BATTERIES. 


Kuhns’s Battery. — Kuhns of Bavaria, has found by experiment, that in 
a battery the ratio of the zinc surface to that of copper depends, in a great 
measure, on the quality of both substances, and that to produce economic- 
ally the greatest result, the relative sizes have to be found experimentally in 
each case. For this reason he uses amalgamated wires of zinc, instead of the 
usual cylinders, and increases progressively the quantity of it till the maxi- 
mum strength of current is reached. The same inventor has also discovered 
that, when the battery is heated to 120° Fahrenheit, the current produced is 
stronger than at any other temperature, and he has invented a battery which 
may be heated easily. It consists of a cast-iron box divided into two por- 
tions by a false bottom. ‘The elements are placed side by side in the upper 
compartment in a bed of sand. In the lower compartment is an alcohol 
lamp. ‘The sand gets uniformly heated, and keeps the elements at the 
proper temperature. After a little practice any person will find how the 
wick of the lamp has to be trimmed to heat the sand up to 120°, and keep 
it at that temperature. This process is used in most Parisian coffee-houses 
to keep coffee as warm as possible without spoiling it by boiling. It is prob- 
able that the strength of current is proportional to the quantity of chemicals 
used up, whatever be the process for producing the same. Hence the ques- 
tion, Will warming the battery increase the strength of the current, more 
economically in cost of apparatus, expense of chemicals, labor and risk of 
getting out of order, than making it larger by adding more of the elements ? 

Doat’s New Battery, with a constant Current.—In this battery the zine is 
replaced by mercury, the acidulated water by iodide of potassium; the 
nitric acid, or sulphate of copper of the batteries with two liquids, by iodine 
dissolved in the iodide of potassium, and, which put in excess in the solid 
state, serves to maintain constant action. Carbon is employed as the nega- 
tive pole. A square trough, of gutta percha, contains the mereury and the 
alkaline iodide. The carbon and the iodized iodide are put into a square 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 161 


porous cup, wnich is immersed in the liquid of the trough, two centimetres 
above the level of the mercury. The battery, once in action, requires 
no other care than that of drawing off with a glass syphon, the liquid satu- 
rated with iodide of mercury, which is to be restored to its primitive elements. 
The couple thus arranged and exhibited recently before the French Acad- 
emy, possessed a feeble electro-motive force. It was but little stronger than 
a couple with sulphate of copper, and only one third that of a couple with 
nitric acid. Its force was such that, for a trough of about five decametres 
square, and with a thickness for the bed of iodide of potassium of about three 
centemetres, it was equivalent to ten metres and a half annealed copper 
wire, one millimetre in diameter, this wire being at 0° centigrade in tempe- 
rature. 

The process adopted by Mr. Doat for economizing the residues, admitting 
of some improvement, he made changes which have increased the power of 
his batteries. 

The main point consists in substituting zinc amalgam for mercury; he 
obtains thence iodide of zinc, and the restoration of this compound to its 
elements, which at first appeared difficult, he has rendered easy by using a 
hydrated carbonate of copper. Whilst the soluble salts of oxide of copper 
in reacting on the alkaline iodides precipitate only one half, the basic salts, 
and especially the carbonate, exercise hardly a sensible action on the alka- 
line iodides, but act with the greatest rapidity on the alkalino-earthy or 
metallic iodides, and eliminate the whole of the iodine, the oxide passing to 
the state of a suboxide, and the metal combining with the iodine becoming 
oxidized. This action, which goes on rapidly at the ordinary temperature, 
is instantaneoiss at 50° C. 

On the flat carbon pole, there is placed a broad filter of porous earth, con- 
taining hydrated carbonate of copper. When the battery has been for a 
while in action, the liquid, consisting of double iodide of zine and potassium, 
is drawn from the troughs and thrown upon the filter, where it is decom- 
posed by the copper salt. The alkaline iodide remains pure and the iodide 
of zinc is changed into an oxide of this metal, whilst the iodine set at liberty 
is dissolved in the alkaline iodide, and passes with it through the filter and 
falls upon the carbon pole. Thus the processes for recovering the iodine 
requires only the drawing off the liquid and putting it in a filter charged 
with hydrated carbonate of copper. The products left on the filter are oxide 
of zinc and carbonate of copper. They are mixed with charcoal and fused 
atared heat. The result is a brass always in demand in commerce. The 
hydrated carbonate of copper is prepared by double decomposition by means 
of sulphate of copper and carbonate of soda ‘The latter is the only product 
which is lost; all the others, the iodine, iodide of potassium, mercury, zinc 
and copper, are re-obtained and may serve again in the battery, or be useful 
elsewhere. 

Mr. Doat does not perform the reduction of the zine and copper except 
when it can be done on a large scale; for he then obtains a casting of brass, 
of greater commercial value. 

A Battery, called a Battery with triple contact.— One element of this bat- 


14* 


162 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tery consists of a glass or stone ware cup, at the bottom of which there is a 
plate of non-amalgamated zinc communicating without by means of a con- 
ducting strip. Above the plate of zinc there is a spiral formed of a rolled 
copper plate having an attachment for making connections. A solution of 
sulphate of potash covers entirely a plate of zinc, and wets to a certain 
height the plate of copper. Immediately on making the connections be- 
tween the copper and zinc, an electric current is established which continues 
constant for several weeks. 

The inventor of this battery is an Italian, Francesco Selmi, Professor of 
Chemistry in the University of Turin. The novel and important point of 
it is the triple contact, viz., between the sulphate of potash and zine, the sul- 
phate of potash and copper, and between the copper and the air. Professor 
Selmi has observed that there is a great advantage in this contact of the air 
with the copper immersed in the sulphate of potash, finding that the electric 
current is sensibly weakened when the copper is wet throughout. 

Jedlik’s Improved Battery.— At the last meeting of the German Asso- 
ciation for the Promotion of Science, Professor Jedlik explained a modifica- 
tion of Professor Bunsen’s battery, made by him, with the assistance of 
MM. de Csapo and Hammer. ‘The septa of the cells in this modified bat- 
tery are made of Professor Schonbein’s paper, wbich may easily be repaired 
with collodion, and opposes little resistance to the passage of the galvanic 
- current. The first experiments were made in 1844, with a one-celled, wood- 
framed Grove’s battery. Afterwards Professor Jedlik succeeded in prepar- 
ing a mixture of sulphur, cinnabar (or oxide of iron), and asbestos, of suf- 
ficient solidity, and which sufficiently resisted the action of nitric acid. A 
battery of one hundred elements, constructed on Professor Jedlik’s plan, 
although much damaged by transport, was exhibited at Paris in the summer 
of 1855. When still unimpaired, forty of these elements gave, with char- 
coal tops at the ends of the polar wires, a light equal in intensity to the 
united flames of 3,500 common candles. 


TELEGRAPHIC MEMORANDA. 


At the meeting of German naturalists at Vienna, last September, M. 
Ginti showed that one telegraphic circuit will affect another which may hap- 
pen to be near it, though the latter be altogether unconnected with the bat- 
tery. Pass a current through the first, and the second, as demonstrated by 
the galvanometer, is visibly affected —in some as yet unexplained way 
through the earth. 

Improvement in House’s Telegraph. — An improvement, known as Baine’s 
Printing Telegraph, has been effected on House’s instrument. The main 
parts of House’s machines are type-wheels, which are made to revolve alike 
at the different stations, so that when they are all stopped at the same in- 
stant by breaking the current, the same letter is, at every place, in front of 
the instrument. Sometimes one wheel gets in advance of the others, and 
remains so until put back by the operator. This getting out of register is 
obviated in the new improvement, by giving the type-wheels a vibrating mo- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 


tion. After telegraphing each letter, these wheels come back to the starting 
point, so that if the machine makes an error it is confined to one letter. In 
another part of the arrangement, denominated the mutator, which is in the 
main telegraphic circuit, there i is such a combination with a permanent elec- 
tro-magnet, that the greatest of all difficulties in stormy weather, that of 
adjusting the magnet, is removed, as the mutator is self-adjusting to a great 
extent, and a line of telegraph can be successfully operated by its use when 
all other magnets are unmanageable. 

The inventor expects that these instruments, in addition to the ordinary 
employment, will be extensively used by newspaper offices, merchants and 
brokers, as they require no skill in handling, and cost but little. 

Curious anticipation of the discovery of the magnetic telegraph. — The prin- 
ciple of the magnetic telegraph, devised by Wheatstone, was foreshadowed 
one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, in Bailey’s Dictionary for 1730, — 
which contains the following : — 

“Some authors write, that by the help of the magnet or loadstone persons 
may communicate their minds to a friend at a great distance ; as suppose 
one to be at London, and the other at Paris, if each of them have a circular 
alphabet, like the dial-plate of a clock, and a needle touched with one mag- 
net, then at the same time that the needle at London was moved, that at 
Paris would move in like manner, provided each party had secret notes for 
dividing words, and the observation was made at a set hour, either of the 
day or of the night; and when one party would inform the other of any 
matter, he is to move the needle to those letters that will form the words, 
that will declare what he would have the other know, and the other needle 
will move in the same manner. This may be done reciprocally.” 

Application of Steam to Telegraphic Purposes. — Mr. Boggs, a well known 
electrician of London, proposes to overcome the great obstacle to rapid tele- 
graph communication, viz., the slowness of the recording process, by the 
following invention: — A series of gutta percha bands, about six inches 
wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, are coiled on wheels or drums 
arranged for the purpose. ‘These bands are studded down both sides with a 
single row of holes at short intervals apart. When a message is to be sent, 
the clerks wind off these bands, inserting in the holes small brass pins, 
which according to their combination in twos and threes (with black holes 
between) represent certain words or letters. In this manner the message is, 
as it were, ‘set up” in the bands with great rapidity, and if the number of 
bands employed is sufficiently large —say as numerous as the compositors 
employed in a large printing office — messages equal in length to five or six 
columns of a newspaper could be set up and ready for transmission in the 
course of a single hour. Of course this operation in no respect interferes 
with the telegraph wire itself, which continues free for use until the bands of 
Messages are actually being despatched. The gutta percha bands, when 
full, are removed to the instrument room, by a simple appliance, preventing 
any derangement or falling out of the pins while being moved about. In 
the instrument room the bands are connected with ordinary steam machinery, 
by which they are drawn in regular order with the utmost rapidity between 


164 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the charged poles of an electrical machine in such a manner that, during the 
moment of each pin’s passing, it forms electrical communication between 
the instrument and the telegraph, and a signal is transmitted to the other 
end of the wire, where the spark perforates a paper and records the message. 

In consequence of a terrible gale during the latter part of the year 1856, 
the two sub-marine cables between the French coast at Calais and Ostende 
and the English coast at Dover were broken by a vessel dragging its anchor 
over them. For some time after this, England had no communication with 
the continent except by the way of Holland. The Calais connection has 
now been reéstablished. The engineer charged with this work made use of 
the opportunity to examine the cable at the place of rupture, and he states 
that the conducting wires were perfectly uninjured in their envelop of gutta 
percha, notwithstanding the five years’ immersion in sea water. 


THE SUBMARINE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH. 


The first attempt to carry out the project of extending a submarine tele- 
graph cable across the Atlantic, between the western coast of Ireland and 
St. John’s, Newfoundland, was unsuccessfully made in the month of August, 
of the past year. Without entering into a detailed account of all the par- 
ticulars of this important undertaking, it is sufficient, as a matter of record 
in these pages to say, that after the successful deposition of 335 miles of 
cable, the line broke, and the enterprise was for the present arrested. ‘The 
maximum depth attained to was upwards of 2000 fathoms, and the electrical 
working of the cable up to the time of the accident, was in every respect 
satisfactory. The general result of the undertaking has conclusively de- 
monstrated that there are no insuperable obstacles to be encountered, and 
that under more favorable circumstances the project will be successfully car- 
ried out. 

The Directors of the Company, in a Report issued subsequent to an in- 
vestigation of the accident, say :—‘‘ Sufficient information has already becn 
obtained to show clearly that the present check to the progress of the work, 
however mortifying, has been purely the result of an accident, and is in no 
way due to any obstacle in the form of the cable, nor of any natural difficul- 
ty, nor of any experience that will in the future affect in the slightest degree 
the entire success of the enterprise. ‘The only sudden declivity of any 
serious magnitude (from 410 fathoms to 1,700 fathoms) had been safely 
overcome, the beautiful flexibility of the cable having rendered it capable of 
adapting itself, without strain, to circumstances which would probably have 
been its ruin had it been more rigidly constructed. The combined influence 
of the temperature of the water, and the compression of the pores of the in- 
sulating medium, had practically shown that the action of a telegraphie 
cable, so far from being impaired, is materially improved by being sunk in 
deep water. These and all other circumstances which have been brought 
out by the recent expedition have made more and more cheering and certain 
the prospects of complete success on the next occasion.” 

Since the commencement of the undertaking the electricians of the com- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 165 


pany, Messrs. Whitehouse and Bright, have devoted much time toa series of 
carefully conducted experiments, with a view of determining the influence 
of induction, and disguised electricity in retarding the transmission of cur- 
rents along submarine wires. An account of these experiments has been 
officially published by the company, from which we make the following ex- 
tracts : — 

In the ordinary arrangement of the wires of the electric telegraph, where 
they are stretched upon posts and insulated by glass and the surrounding 
air, the current of clectricity runs along as a simple stream, and with a ve- 
locity that is almost inappreciable for ordinary distances. But when the 
wires are inclosed in a sheath of insulating substance, like gutta percha, and 
placed in a moist medium or a metallic envelop, the case is very different. 
The influence of induction then comes into play as a retarding power. <As 
soon as the insulated central wire is electrically excited, that excitement 
operates upon the adjoining layer of metal or moisture, and calls up in it 
an electrical force of an opposite kind. Each of these forces disguises, or 
holds fast, an equivalent portion of the other,—and the electricity of the 
central wire is thus prevented from moving frecly onward as it otherwise 
would. It is found, in short, that the submarine telegraph cable is virtually 
a lengthened out Leyden jar, and transmits signals while being charged and 
discharged, instead of merely by allowing a stream of the electrical influ- 
ence to flow dynamically and evenly along it. And every time it is used it 
has first to be filled and then emptied. In the case of a long submarine 
wire this was found to be a task requiring considerable time, — and this was 
found, moreover, to be very much increased with an increase in the length 
of the wire. 

In the early experiments made for the determination of the speed 
with which the subtle influence travelled along metallic wires, hundreds of 
thousands of miles appeared to be traversed in a second of time. But 
when a similar examination was entered upon with telegraphic lines running 
between London, Manchester and Glasgow, and laid under ground, and be- 
tween London and Paris, and London and Brussels, partly under ground 
and partly submarine, it seemed that scarcely thousands of miles were 
passed in the same period ; indeed, the statement was made in a paper read 
by Mr. Edward Bright, at the meeting of the British Association in 1854, 
that the velocity of currents in ordinary use for telegraphic purposes in subterra- 
nean conductors did not exceed one thousand miles per second. This gentle- 
man also inferred from experiments carried on in a circuit of 480 miles of 
underground wire, that the speed with which an electrical impulse was trans- 
mitted varied with the energy or intensity of the current employed, and the 
nature and conditions of the conductor used, and hence that the rate of 
transmission might be greatly increased at will by adopting currents of a 
different character to those which had been habitually trusted to. 

Professor Faraday had at once attributed these experimental discrepan- 
cies to their true cause ; and Mr. Whitehouse exhibits a very beautiful and 
convincing experimental proof that it is as Leyden jars, and by retention 
of charge, that submarine cables act. He takes, first, fifteen miles of insu- 


166 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 


lated wire, with a conducting layer external to its insulating investment, 
and turns up its further end into the air, and he then does the same thing 
with a two hundred miles length of the same wire. He next communicates 
as full a charge to each of these lengths as they have the capacity to retain. 
Then he discharges each, allowing the discharge to flow through a fine wire 
coiled round a bar of soft iron, so that the bar may be rendered a magnet 
pro tempore during the actual current of the electricity. Upon measuring 
the force of each discharge-current, estimating it by the number of grains 
the temporary magnet is able to lift, he finds that where the fifteen mile 
length of the wire is concerned, the weight lifted amounts to 1,075 grains, 
and that where the two hundred mile length is concerned, the weight lifted 
amounts to 2,300 grains. A current which lifted 18,000 grains by simply 
running through the apparatus thus arranged, upon being sent into a coated 
insulated wire 498 miles long, lifted 60,000 grains when allowed to flow 
back as discharge, and even 96,000 grains if the discharge passed from both 
ends of the wire at once, and round the same temporary magnet. ‘The sig- 
nificance of this result, reduced to plain terms, is simply this —the wires act 
as reservoirs, and not as mere channels, and accordingly the larger reservoir re- 
ceives and holds a larger quantity of the influence than the smaller one, and this 
larger quantity naturally produces the most powerful effects when it is allowed to 
escape from its imprisonment. If the wires were acting as common conduct- 
ors, the longer wire would produce the weaker effect on account of the elec- 
trical influence being attenuated through its extent. As they are operating 
as Leyden jars, or reservoirs, the longer wire is the most capacious recepta- 
cle, and produces the most energetic result, as its contents are poured out. 
It is now a familiar fact, that sensitive magnetic needles, placed by the side 
of a long and completely insulated wire when it is charged, give clear indi- 
cation of the first “‘rush”’ of the influence into the wire, of the retention of 
the charge for several minutes after the charging contact has been broken, 
and of the final “‘rush out,” or discharge of the influence in the opposite di- 
rection, when the wire is connected with the earth by its nearer end. 

When the fact had been satisfactorily made out that the insulated marine 
wire must act as a Leyden jar, and be affected by charge and discharge, it 
became a matter of the highest practical importance to determine whether 
there was any peculiarity in this mode of operation which might be expected 
to interfere with the final success of telegraphy, in its application to long 
distances of sea circuit. A length of 166 miles of cable chancing to be in 
process of manufacture at Greenwich, the opportunity was seized to carry 
practical research into the matter. This cable contained three very perfectly 
insulated wires, arranged side by side in its core of gutta percha, in such a 
manner that they could very easily be connected together by their ends, so 
as to make an available length of wire for experiment of 498 miles. 

The first thing done with this arrangement was the experimenter’s satis- 
fying himself that he might use the results of his experiments ‘as fair ex- 
pressions of what would take place in an extended wire 498 miles long, not- 
withstanding the three several wires, which formed successive parts of the 
line, lying side by side in the narrow dimensions of the gutta percha core. 


‘NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 167 


A careful examination was made of the influence each wire exerted upon its 
neighbor, in setting up slight charges of an opposite kind of electricity in- 
ductively, and it was found that the inductive influence thus exerted was only a 
ten-thousandth part of that which was transmitted along either of the wires, 166 
mites long. 'The results were attained by passing currents in various direc- 
tions and in various ways along three wires simultaneously, and by estimat- 
ing the differences of power in each, by their diverse capabilities of magneti- 
zing soft iron bars. 

By 1855 the scientific corps had provided themselves with much more com- 
plete and perfect instruments for pursuing these inquiries ; and the construc- 
tion of new telegraph lines had also furnished them with better opportunities 
of making their experiments. It was soon found that a magneto-electrical 
current took a second and a half to discharge itself, when it moved through 
1,146 miles of wire, in consequence of the retarding power of induction in 
this extended medium. ‘This was a rate of speed not at all compatible with 
any profitable employment of a trans-atlantic telegraph for commercial pur- 
poses, — and the next step was to devise some remedy for this inductive ob- 
stacle. The first thing done was to send different kinds of electricity along 
the wire in succession, in the hope that each transmission of one kind would 
clear away the residue of the other which had immediately preceded it. 
The result was a complete success. Although the same wire and the same 
magneto-electric combination were employed which had before demanded a 
second and a half for the completion of a single discharge, seven and eight 
currents now readily recorded themselves in a single second. When posi- 
tive followed negative, and negative followed positive, in exactly equal pro- 
portions, the electrical equilibrium of the wire was continually restored as 
fast as it was disturbed, — each current clearing away the inductive influence 
which the other had left behind it. It was proved, moreover, in the course 
of these experiments, that successive charges of electrical influence, — either 
of the same kind or of alternate opposite kinds, — may be travelling along 
lengthened conducting wires simultaneously, — the one following the other 
like successive waves upon the seca. Alternate positive and negative signals 
were sent along 900 miles of wire, at the rate of eight signals in each 
second, — and two signals arrived at the end of the wire after the acts of 
transmission had been discontinued. In another experiment by the use of a 
wire 1,020 miles long, three signals of a single-stroke bell were distinctly 
heard after the movement of the hand which originated the current had 
ceased. This, therefore, indicated a way in which the rapidity of trans- 
mitting clectrical currents along a submarine wire could be increased ; it 
_ was necessary only to employ opposite kinds, —positive and negative alter- 
nately. 

The next point to be investigated was the ratio in which increase of dis- 
tance in a gutta percha covered telegraph wire augments the difficulties of 
rapid transmission. It had been supposed that the available force was di- 
minished in the ratio of the square of the distance traversed, — that is, that 
a current which has traversed 600 miles has only a thirty-sixth part of the 
working force of a precisely similar current which has travelled only 100 


168 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


miles. In experimenting upon this point they had to consider: First, the 
diminution of the current’s power to produce mechanical effects; and, 
Second, its loss of speed. A voltaic battery of seventy-two pairs of plates, 
each with a surface of sixteen inches, was set to work, and it was ascertained 
how many grains the current would raise in an instrument contrived for this 
purpose, and called the Magneto-Electrometer, upon being transmitted 
through a wire just long enough to effect the connection. The number of 
grains lifted was 25,000. The experiment being repeated with the same 
current through 200 miles of wire, the number of grains lifted was 10,650; 
with 400 miles of wire it was 3,250; and with 600 miles it was 1,400. 
Clearly the loss of mechanical power in this case was not diminished in so 
large a ratio as had been supposed. In regard to loss of speed, nearly five 
thousand observations were made, with wires varying in length from eighty- 
three to one thousand and twenty miles, to determine its ratio; and from 
these it appeared that with a wire eighty-three miles long the transmission 
was effected in .08 of a second ; with 166 miles in .14 of asecond; with 249 
miles in .36 of a second; with 498 miles in .79 of a second ; and with 1,020 
miles in 1.42 of asecond. ‘Taking cighty-three miles as the unit, there was 
in these observations a series of distances employed, which would be repre- 
sented by numbers 1, 2, 3, 6 and 12. Consequently, if the law of the 
squares of distance had applied, the transmission through the thousand mile 
length of wire should have been one hundred and forty-four times as slow 
as through the eighty-three miles length, or in other words, it should have 
required nearly twelve seconds for its completion. The result of a very 
large number of direct experiments and observations, pretty well established 
the fact, that the velocity of movement of a magneto-electric current, 
through a gutta percha covered copper wire-of the size of sixteen gauge, is 
300 miles in from one-twelfth to one-sixteenth of a second; 600 miles in 
from one-sixth to one-ninth of a second; and 900 miles in from one-fifth to 
one-fourth of asecond. The series of distances being represented by 1, 2, 
3 — the corresponding series representing velocity becomes one-quarter, one- 
ninth, one-sixteenth, or thereabouts. With a wire 500 miles long, 350 dis- 
tinct signals were attainable in a period which allowed of exactly 270 dis- 
tinct signals, when a wire 1,020 miles long was used. 

But the extent of the conductor is obviously not the only element con- 
cerned in the velocity of transmission, for wires of equal dimensions and of 
like composition. The velocity varies with the strength or quantity of the 
electrical current sent through any given wire. Seven small pieces of zine 
were prepared and covered entirely with sealing wax, fragments of copper 
wire being attached to serve as copper plates. The sealing wax was then 
chipped off just from the point of each, leaving a portion of the metal bare, 
to the extent of scarcely the size of the letter o on this page. These zinc 
plates having been put into seven small acid-charged cells, and so constituted 
a voltaic battery, a receiving instrument was set printing by means of their 
Lilliputian energies through 600 miles of wire. The printing instrument 
performed its work with the utmost facility, but, by means of the recording 
apparatus already described, it was proved that the current took nine-tenths 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 169 


of a second to make its journey. From a voltaic sand-battery of twelve 
pairs of four-inch plates, the current took forty-four hundredths of a second 
to traverse 600 miles of wire. 

Yet again ; currents of a different quality travelled with different degrees 
of velocity, even when equal to mechanical tasks of like amount at the ex- 
tremity of any given wire. Seventy-two pairs of sand-battery plates, (each 
sixteen square inches in area), which lifted 1,400 grains in the magneto-elec- 
trometer at the end of a 600 miles wire, generated a current which took 
forty-four hundredths of a second to traverse that distance. Two large 
double induction coils, thirty-six inches long, (the secondary coils being 
composed of a mile and a third of fine wire), and excited by ten pairs of 
plates of 100 square inches each, arranged as a Smee’s battery, gave rise to 
a current which could only lift 745 grains at the end of a 600 miles wire, 
but the current in this case travelled through the entire stretch of wire in 
nineteen-hundredths of a second. Simple voltaic electricity was capable of 
a greater mechanical effort at the end of a long wire, than a magneto-elec- 
tric current; but the voltaic electricity, which was capable of the greater 
mechanical effort, strange to say, travelled through the insulated wire at a con- 
siderably lower rate of speed. A very large number of experiments com- 
bined to prove that a rate of transmission could be obtained by the employ- 
ment of magneto-electric currents from two and a half to three times as 
great as that of any voltaic impulse that could be used. ‘The mean or 
average speed for voltaic electricity in a number sixteen gauge copper wire, 
of a certain determinate length, was about 1,400 miles per second ; the mean 
or average speed of the magneto-electric current in a similar wire of equal 
length was about 4,300 miles per second.. The maximum speed attained by 
voltaic electricity was 1,800 miles per second; the maximum for the mag- 
neto-electric current was 6,000 miles per second. ‘There could be no doubt, 
after these experiments, that the magneto-electric current issuing from induction 
coils gives a treble velocity of electrical transmission, and therefore realizes a three- 
fold working speed. 

Professor Faraday has shown that no augmentation of velocity results 
from the use of an increased amount of battery-power in the simple voltaic 
arrangement, up to the employment of twenty times the number of plates 
used at the first. In this particular again the double induction current es- 
tablished for itself a marked superiority. ‘This current can have the speed 
augmented by increased amount of battery power. This was remarkably 
proved by an inverse inference in one observation, in which there was a 
steady and gradual diminution of velocity from 5,400 to 3,600 miles per 
second, during the spontaneous exhaustion of a small Groye’s battery, em- 
ployed in exciting a series of magnetic induction coils. Increased quantity 
in this arrangement tells by filling the thick wire of the primary coil to its 
full capacity, and this produces iticreased polar force in the temporary mag- 
net, and increased inductive excitement in the finer secondary coil. 

Experiment demonstrates that the velocity of an electric current dimin- 
ishes with progress along a lengthened gutta percha coated wire, more 
nearly in the proportion of an arithmetical series, than in that of the squares 

15 


170 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of the units of distance travelled. The retardation practically does in a 
measure exceed the simple arithmetical ratio of units of distance traversed; 
but this departure from the law of the simple series is in all probability due 
to the retardation caused in the further portions of the conducting wire by 
the increasingly exhausted condition of the weakened stream. When the 
amount of electro motive force is fairly proportioned to the length of the 
wire, a more uniform rate of propagation in the several parts of a continu- 
ous extent is found than is the case when an adequate amount of electrical 
influence is employed. 

When the notion was first brought prominently forward that the electrical 
influence ought to pass along telegraphic wires with a velocity proportional 
in reverse ratio to the square of the length of the wire, an hypothetical 
plan was proposed for practically getting over this difficulty. This plan 
was, to make the road for the electrical current of easier access, by rendering tt 
larger. It was conceived that if one wire was required to transmit signals 
with equal facility and speed to another which was only one-sixth part as 
long, the longer wire should be made of at least six times the capacity of 
the shorter one. 

It was obviously a matter of primary importance to the cause of Atlantic 
telegraphy that the deductions of this theory should be put to rigid experi- 
mental proof, because, if they were correct, so large and ponderous a cable 
would be required to carry even a single conductor, that the manufacture 
and deposit in the Atlantic depths of such an unwieldy mass would be an 
affair that must prove of exceeding difficulty and cost, if not, indeed, alto- 
gether impracticable, The Calais and Dover cable weighs eight tons per 
mile; the entire weight of a cable for Atlantic service, of only the same 
dimensions as this, would be at least 20,000 tons. As, therefore, the Atlan- 
tic Cable would be required by theory considerably to exceed this, it is 
plain that not even Scott Russell’s Leviathan ship, which will be able to 
move over the waves with an army of ten thousand men upon her decks, 
could carry it to its destination. In the unsuccessful attempt to lay down 
the Mediterranean cabie, it was found to be a task of extreme difficulty, and 
even danger, to manage the mechanical parts of the operation, owing to the 
great weight of the cable held in suspension, and the vast strength and grip 
of machinery required .to suspend. It may, therefore, be easily imagined 
what the task would be with a cable weighing some ten tons per mile. The 
weight in Atlantic depths, dependent upon itself, and hanging from the ship 
and machinery would with it exceed twenty tons ; an amount equally incon- 
venient and dangerous to the cohesion of the structure, and to the capabili- 
ties of the apparatus used in paying out. 

The first experimental investigations upon this point comprised a series 
of not less than two thousand observations. The experimenter worked 
with a three hundred miles length-of wire, which he was enabled so to double 
and treble at will, that it became for the time virtually a wire of twice or 
three times the original capacity. The result was that it appeared the wire 
of increased capacity did not transmit electrical signals with greater facility 
and speed than the smaller one. With a length of 166 miles, the velocity 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 171 


or movement of the simple voltaic current came out .16 of a second for a 
single wire; .21 of a second for a double one, and .28 for a treble one. 
With the same length, the velocity of the double induction current came out 
for the single wire, .08; with the double one, .09; and with the treble one 
.095 of asecond. With a length of 250 miles, the velocity was for voltaic 
electricity, .29 and .406 of a second for a single and double wire respectively, 
and for the double induction current .145 and .185 of a second. The fact 
thus actually is, that ‘nercasing the size of the conductor augments retardation 
in the transmission of electricity through it. A treble-sized conductor gives 
nearly a doubled rate of retardation. 

The general conclusion drawn from the important investigation of the as- 
sumption that electrical currents would move in submarine cireuits with ve- 
locities that were in inverse ratio to the squares of the lengths of the circuits, 
seems to be that Nature recognizes the existence of no such law. “The law of 
the squares”? may possibly apply to the transmission of electricity freely along 
simple conducting wires, but zt certainly does not apply to the case of its trans- 
mission along submarine or subterranean gutta percha covered wire, (the facility 
of transmission being estimated by rate of speed), because in this the case is 
not one of simple conduction, but of transmission after the wire has been 
charged inductively to saturation as a Leyden jar. 

As the result of all the investigations the following points may be con- 
sidered as established : — 

That gutta percha covered submarine wires do not transmit as simple in- 
sulated conductors, but that they have to be charged as Leyden jars, before 
they can transmit at all. 

That, consequently, such wires transmit with a velocity that is in no way 
accordant to the movement of the electrical current in an unembarrassed 
way along simple conductors. 

That magneto-electric currents travel more quickly along such wires than 
simple voltaic currents. 

That magneto-electric currents travel more quickly when in high energy 
than when in low, although voltaic currents of large intensity do not travel 
more quickly than voltaic currents of small intensity. 

That the velocity of the transmission of signals along insulated submerged 
wires can be enormously increased, from the rate indeed of one in two 
seconds, to the rate of eight in a single.second, by making each alternate 
signal with a current of different quality, positive following negative, and 
negative following positive. 

That the diminution of the velocity of the transmission of a magneto- 
electric current in induction-embarrassed coated wires, is not in the inverse 
ratio of the squares of the distance traversed, but much more nearly in the 
ratio of simple arithmetical progression. 

The several distinct waves of electricity may be travelling alone different 
parts of a long wire simultancously, and within certain limits, without inter- 
ference. 

That large coated wires used beneath the water or the earth are worse 
conductors, so far as velocity of transmission is concerned. than small ones, 


172 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and therefore are not so well suited as small ones for the purposes of sub- 
marine transmission of telegraphic signals ; and 

That by the use of comparatively small coated wires, and of electro-mag- 
netic induction-coils for the exciting agents, telegraphic signals can be trans- 
mitted through two thousand miles with a speed amply sufficient for all 
commercial and economical purposes. 


ON THE DEPOSITION OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE. 


In a discussion which took place at the last meeting of the British Asso- 
ciation, on the deposition of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, and its arrange- 
ment upon the bottom, it seemed to be universally admitted that it was 
mathematically impossible, unless the speed of the vessel from which the 
cable was payed out could be almost infinitely increased, to lay out a cable 
in deep waters (say two miles or more) in such a way as not to require a 
length much greater than that of the actual distance, as from the inclined 
direction of the yet sinking part of the cable, the successive portions payed 
out must, when they reached the bottom, arrange themselves in wavy folds ; 
since the actual length is greater than the entire horizontal distance. The 
fact, therefore, which, when noticed, led to the increasing of the strain on 
the Atlantic cable until it broke ought to have been anticipated, and must 
be provided for in the future progress of that great national undertaking. 


GRAHAM’S IMPROVED MAGNETIC COMPASS. 


In this recently patented compass, by Capt. Graham, of England, the 
local attraction in iron vessels is counteracted by means of a series of per- 
manent magnets. Instead of being laid down on the deck as in the old 
plan of adjustment, these magnets, four or five in number, are disposed on 
a frame round the compass and on a level with the card, and are so arranged 
as to bring their polarities into correlative lines. Each magnet is fitted with 
a screw, by which it may be brought nearer to or drawn back from the com- 
pass by simply turning a small key. ‘The effect of these magnets is to sur- 
round the compass with a well balanced and tensible force which cuts off or 
neutralizes all local derangements. Whatever the amount of disturbance 
may be, the magnets can be so brought to bear upon the compass as to over- 
come it. Great steadiness is thus imparted to the needle, preserved as it is 
trom oscillation by invisible threads of influence issuing from the magnets, 
while at the same time what is called “the sluggishness” of the needle is 
dissipated, its energy and sensitiveness are increased, or in other words it is 
rendered more susceptible of influence by the natural magnetic current, and 
consequently a more prompt and truthful indicator of any alteration in the 
ship’s course. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ELECTROTYPE PROCESS, 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association M. L’ Abbe Moigno 
read a very interesting paper “On three new Electrotype Processes,” and 


. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Lvs 


exhibited several specimens. ‘The first of these consisted in the employment 
of platina instead of copper, and of making a skeleton figure roughly re- 
sembling the outline of the cast sought to be attained, by means of which, 
according to the lecturer’s process, can be produced busts, statues, and 
groups in fullrelief by a single operation. The second process was for gal- 
yanizing or coppering iron and cast iron to any thickness required without 
the cyanide bath, and its employment in commerce and in the navy. The 
process was not fully communicated, as it is commercially desirous to keep 
it a secret, but sufficient was communicated to show that the cyanide bath, 
which is not only expensive but dangerous, can be dispensed with. The 
last branch of the paper treated of Messrs. Christofi and Bouillet’s process 
for strenethening electrotypes, the principle of which was to leave an open- 
ing in the back of the thin electrotype, obtained by precipitating it, and by 
putting it into a number of small pieces of brass, which, on being melted 
with an oxhydrogen blast, become diffused all over the interior of the cop- 
per without injuring it in any way, and thereby imparting to it the strength 
of cast iron. 


RECENT PROGRESS OF TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM. 


It has been long known that the elements of the earth’s magnetic force 
were subject to certain regular and recurring changes, whose periods were, 
respectively, a day and a year, and which, therefore, were referred to the sun 
as their source. To these periodical changes Dr. Lamont, of Munich, 
added another of ten years, the diurnal range of the magnetic declination 
having been found to pass from a maximum to a minimum, and back again, 
in about that time. But besides these slow and regular changes, there are 
others of a different class, which recur at irregular intervals, and which are 
characterized by a large deviation of the magnetic elements from their nor- 
mal state, and generally also by rapid fluctuation and change. These phe- 
nomena, called by Humboldt ‘‘ magnetic storms” have been observed to 
oceur simultaneously in the most distant parts of the earth, and therefore indi- 
cate the operation of causes affecting the entire globe. But, casual as they. 
seem, they are found to be subject to laws of their own. Professor Kreil 
was the first to discover that, at a given place, they recurred more frequently 
at certain hours of the day than at others ; and that, consequently, in their 
mean effects, they were subject to periodical laws, depending upon the hour at 
each station. The laws of this periodicity have been ably worked out by 
General Sabine in his discussion of the results of the British Colonial Ob- 
servatories ; and he has added the important facts, that the same phenomena 
observe also the two other periods already noticed, — namely, the annual and 
the decennial periods. He has further arrived at the very remarkabie result, 
that the decennial magnetic period coincides, both in its duration and in its 
epochs of maxima and minima, with the decennial period observed by 
Schwabe in the solar spots; from which it is to be inferred that the sun ex- 
ercises a magnetic influence upon the earth dependent on the condition of its 
luminous envelop. We are thus in the presence of two facts, which appear 


to* 


174 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


at first sight opposed —namely, the absolute simultaneity of magnetic dis- 
turbances at all parts of the earth, and their predominance at certain local 
hours at each place. General Sabine accounts for this apparent discrepancy 
by the circumstance, that the hours of maximum disturbance are different 
for the different elements ; so that there may be an abnormal condition of 
the magnetic force, operating at the same instant over the whole globe, but 
manifesting itself at one place chiefly in one element, and at another place 
in another. I would venture to suggest, as a subject of inquiry, whether 
the phenomena which have been hitherto grouped together as ‘‘ occasional ” 
effects, may not possibly include two distinct classes of changes, obeying 
separate laws —one of them being strictly periodic, and constituting a part 
of the regular diurnal change ; while the other is strictly abnormal and simut- 
taneous. If this be so, it would follow that we are not justified in separating 
the larger changes from the rest, merely on the ground of their magniiude, 
and that a different analysis of the phenomenon will be required. The 
effects hitherto considered are all referrable to the sun as their cause. Prof. 
Kreil discovered, however, that another body of our system — namely, our 
own satellite—exerted an effect upon the magnetig needle, and that the 
magnetic declination underwent a small and very regular variation, whose 
amount was dependent on the lunar hour-angle, and whose period was 
therefore a lunar day. This singular result was subsequently confirmed by 
Mr. Broun in his discussion of the Makerstown Observations ; and its laws 
have since been fully traced, for all the magnetic elements, by General 
Sabine, in the results obtained at the Colonial Magnetic Observatories. 
The foregoing facts bear closely upon the debated question of the causes of 
the magnetic variations. It has been usual to ascribe the periodical changes 
of the earth’s magnetic force to the thermic action of the sun, operating 
either directly upon the magnetism of the earth, or affecting it indirectly by 
the induction of the thermo-electrie currents. Here, however, we have a 
distinct case of magnetic action, unaccompanied by heat; and the question 
is naturally suggested, whether the solar diurnal change may not also be in- 
dependent of temperature. The most important fact, in its bearing upon 
this question, is the existence of an annual inequality in the diurnal variation, 
dependent on the sun’s declination, recently pointed out by General Sabine. 
If we deduct the ordinate of the curve which represents the mean diur- 
nal variation for the entire year, from those for the summer and winter half- 
yearly curves respectively, the differences are found to be equal and opposite ; 
and the curves which represent them are, consequently, similar, but oppo- 
sitely placed, with respect to the axis of abscisse. From this, General 
Sabine draws the inference, that the diurnal variation is a direct effect of solar 
action, and not a result of its thermic agency. — Pres. Loyd’s Address befcre 
the British Association. 


ON THE ORIGIN AND CAUSE OF THE AURORA BOREALIS. 


At the Montreal meeting of the A. A. A. S., Prof. Olmstead presented briefly 
his views respecting the origin and cause of the aurora borealis. Contrary 
to the opinion which ascribes it to terrestrial agents, as electricity or magnet- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 


ism, he argued that the origin of the aurora was cosmical, the matter of 
which it was composed being derived from the planetary spaces. He inferred 
this cosmical origin, from the following reasons: First, from the great 
extent of the exhibitions, sometimes spreading from east to west, for many 
housand miles, and rushing to a height of a hundred miles and more, quite 
above the region of atmospheric precipitation. Secondly, from the fact that 
in places differing many degrees of longitude, the different stages of the 
aurora (beginning, maximum and end) occur at the same hour of the night, 
indicating that a place on the earth, in its diurnal revolution, comes succes- 
sively under the nearest point of the auroral body situated in space. Thirdly, 
from the velocity of the motions, being too small for light itself, but too great 
to result from any known terrestrial force, as magnetic or electrical fractions, 
occasioning a translation of the matter of the aurora. Fourthly, from the 
periodicity of the aurora, especially its secular periodicity, appearing at long 
but nearly definite intervals in a grand series of exhibitions, which increase 
to a maximum and then diminish in number and intensity, until the phe- 
nomenon, in its grandest forms, vanishes from our nocturnal heavens, —a 
fact which appears to remove it from the pale of terrestrial, and to bring it 
clearly within the domain of astronomical causes, implying a nebulous body 
in the planetary spaces, from which the material of the aurora is derived, 
having a revolution around the sun, and a period in a nearly simple ratio to 
the earth’s periods. 

At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Capt. Maguire, who 
commanded the Plover, sent out in search of Sir John Franklin, via of 
Bhering’s Straits, in the course of a discussion, said he wished he could con- 
vey to the meeting any vivid impressions of the beauty of the aurora as 
witnessed at Point Barrow, the most northern cape of that part of the Ameti- 
can continent which hes between Bhering’s Straits and Mackenzie’s River. 
It was never seen during the hours of daylight, or those hours which corres- 
ponded to mid-day, but towards evening its displays began, at first towards 
the north; it then extended in splendid arches spanning the entire sky, and 
seeming to end in beautiful coronze towards the zenith ; these were occasion- 
ally of the most brilliant and varied tints and colors. It spread gradually 
more south, and at length died away towards the morning hours in the south. 
Such were the beauty and interest of these displays, that men and officers 
constantly, with the thermometer at and below forty degrees below zero, 
stood out for hours witnessing the glorious scene. During these auroral dis- 
plays he could not say that he had ever witnessed those violent agitations of 
the needle that others had described, but the easterly disturbance of the va- 
riation seemed to be simultaneous with its northerly display, and the westerly 
to its influence when it had passed to the south. At some distance from the 
ships, say about five miles, the water shoaled, and the ice had been driven 
up into beautiful rocky pinnacles ; beyond this, again, the water was always 
free of ice, and its temperature was frequently found to be twenty-eight de- 
grees above zero, when that of the air above was even forty degrees below 
zero ; the consequence was, that it had all the appearance of a boiling sea, 
80 great was the quantity of vapor thrown up from it. 


176 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ON THE DISPOSITION OF FORCE IN PARAMAGNETIC AND DIAMAG- 
NETIC BODIES. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture on the above subject, recently 
delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, by Prof. Tyndall, 
F.R.S.:— 

The motion of an attractive force, which draws bodies towards the centre 
of the earth, was entertained by Anaxagoras and his pupils, by Democritus, 
Pythagoras, and Epicurus; and the conjectures of these ancients were 
renewed by Galileo, Huyghens, and others, who stated that bodies attract 
each other as a magnet attracts iron. Kepler applied the notion to bodier 
beyond the surface of the earth, and affirmed the extension of this force te 
the most distant stars. Thus it would appear, that in the attraction of iro» 
by a magnet originated the conception of the force of gravitation. Never 
theless, if we look closely at the matter, it will be seen that the magnetic 
force possesses characters strikingly distinct from those of the force which 
holds the universe together. The theory of gravitation is, that every parti 
cle of matter attracts every other particle; in magnetism also we have the 
phenomenon of attraction, but we have also, at the same time, the fact of 
repulsion, and the final effect is always due to the difference of these two 
forces. A body may be intensely acted on by a magnet, and still no motion 
of translation will follow, if the repulsion be equal to the attraction. A dip- 
ping needle was exhibited ; previous to magnetization, the needle, when its 
centre of gravity was supported, stood accurately level; but, after magnet- 
ization, one end of it was pulled towards the north pole of the earth. The 
needle, however, being suspended from the arm of a fine balance, it was 
shown that its weight was unaltered by its magnetization. In like manner, 
when the needle was permitted to float upon a liquid, and thus to follow the 
attraction of the north magnetic pole of the earth, there was no motion of 
the mass towards the pole referred to; and the reason was known to be, that 
although the marked end of the needle was attracted by the north pole, the 
unmarked end was repelled by an equal quantity, and these two equal and 
opposite forces neutralized each other as regards the production of a motion 
of translation. When the pole of an ordinary magnet was brought to act 
upon the swimming needle, the latter was attracted, — the reason being that 
the attracted end of the needle being much nearer to the pole of the magnet 
than the repelled end, the force of attraction was the more powerful of the 
two ; but in the case of the earth, the pole being so distant, the length of the 
needle was practically zero. In like manner, when a piece of iron is pre- 
sented to a magnet, the nearer parts are attracted, while the more distant 
parts are repelled ; and because the attracted portions are nearer to the mag- 
net than the repelled ones, we have a balance in favor of attraction. Here, 
then, is the most wonderful characteristic of the magnetic force, which dis- 
tinguishes it from that of gravitation. The latter is a simple unpolar force, 
while the former is duplex or polar. Were gravitation like magnetism, a 
stone would no more fall to the ground than a piece of iron towards the 
north magnetic pole; and thus, however rich in consequences the supposi- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 177 


tion of Kepler and others may have been, it was clear that a force like 
that of magnetism would not be able to transact the business of the uni- 
verse. 

The object of the evening’s discourse was to inquire whether the force of 
diamagnetism, which manifested itself as a repulsion of certain bodies by the 
poles of a magnet, was to be ranged as a polar force, beside that of magne- 
tism; or as an unpolar force, beside that of gravitation. 

By means of a beautifully-devised piece of apparatus, which cannot well 
be explained without a diagram, Prof. Tyndall was enabled to experiment- 
ally prove that the force of diamagnetism was a polar force, precisely an- 
tithetical to the force cf magnetism. The diamagnetic substance operated 
on in the first instance, was bismuth, but the same action was found to take 
place with various other substances, as phosphorus, nitre, sulphur, calcareous 
spar, statuary marble, etc., each of these substances was proved polar, the 
disposition of the force being the same as that of bismuth and the reverse 
of that of iron. When a bar of iron is set erect, its lower end is known to 
be a north pole, and its upper end a south pole, in virtue of the earth’s in- 
duction. A marble statue, on the contrary, has its feet a south pole, and its 
head a north pole, and there is no doubt that the same remark applies to its 
living archetype ; each man walking over the earth’s surface is a true diamag- ° 
net, with its poles the reverse of those of a mass of magnetic matter of the 
same shape and in a similar position. 


ON THE CONSERVATISM OF FORCE. 


The following lecture by Prof. Faraday, before the Royal Institution, is 
one of the most interesting contributions made to physical science during the 
past year. The reputation and experience of the author, the interest felt by 
all scientific men in his communications, and the fact that the paper has not 
hitherto been republished in the United States, are reasons for its entire re- 
production in the pages of the Annual of Scientific Discovery. — Eprror. 

Various circumstances induce me at the present moment to put forth a 
consideration regarding the conservation of force. Ido not suppose that I 
ean utter any truth respecting it that has not already presented itself to the 
high and piercing intellects which move within the exalted regions of science ; 
but the course of my own investigations and views makes me think that the 
consideration may be of’service to those persevering laborers (amongst whom 
I endeavor to class myself) who, occupied in the comparison of physical 
ideas with fundamental principles, and continually sustaining and aiding 
themselves by experiment and observation, delight to labor for the advance 
of natural knowledge, and strive to follow it into undiscovered regions. 

There is no question which lies closer to the root of all physical knowledge 
than that which inquires whether force can be destroyed or not. The pro- 
gress of the strict science of modern times has tended more and more to 
produce the conviction that “force can neither be created nor destroyed ;”’ 
and to render daily more manifest the value of the knowledge of that truth 
im “xperimental research. To admit, indeed, that force may be destructible 


178 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


or can altogether disappear, would be to admit that matter could be uncre- 
ated; for we know matter only by its forces; and though one of these is 
most commonly referred to, namely, gravity, to prove its presence, it is not 
because gravity has any pretension, or any exemption, amongst the forms of 
force as regards the principle of conservation, out simply that being, as far as 
we perceive, inconvertible in its nature and unchangeable in its manifesta- 
tion, it offers an unchanging test of the matter which we recognize by it. 
Agreeing with those who admit the conservation of force to be a principle 
in physics, as large and sure as that of the indestructibility of matter, or the 
invariability of gravity, I think that no particular idea of force has a right to 
unlimited or unqualified acceptance that does not include assent to it; and 
also, to definite amount and definite disposition of the force, either in one 
effect or another, for these are necessary consequences; therefore I urge, 
that the conservation of force ought to be admitted as a physical principle in 
all our hypotheses, whether partial or general, regarding the actions of mat- 
ter. Ihave had doubts in my own mind whether the considerations I am 
about to advance are not rather metaphysical than physical. I am unable 
to define what is metaphysical in physical science; and am exceedingly ad- 
verse to the easy and unconsidered admission of one supposition upon 
another, suggested as they often are by very imperfect induction from a 
small number of facts, or by a very imperfect observation of the facts them- 
selves; but, on the other hand, I think the philosopher may be bold in his 
application of principles which have been developed by close inquiry, have 
stood through much investigation, and. continually increase in force. For 
instance, time is growing up daily into importance as an element in the ex- 
ercise of force. The earth moves in its orbit in time; the crust of the earth 
moves in time; light moves in time; an electro-magnet requires time for 
its charge by an electric current; to inquire, therefore, whether power, act- 
ing either at sensible or insensible distances, always acts in time, is not to be 
metaphysical; if it acts in time and across space, it must act by physical 
lines of force ; and our view of the nature of the force may be affected to the 
extremest degree by the conclusions which experiment and observation on 
time may supply; being, perhaps, finally determinable only by them. To 
inquire after the possible time in which gravitating, magnetic, or electric 
force is exerted, is no more metaphysical than to mark the times of the hands 
of a clock in their progress ; or that of the temple of Serapis and its ascents 
and descents; or the periods of the occultations of Jupiter’s satellites ; or 
that in which the light from them comes to the earth. Again, in some of 
the known cases of action in time, something happens whilst the t/me is 
passing which did not happen before, and does not continue after; it is, 
therefore, not metaphysical to expect an effect in every case, or to endeavor 
to discover its existence and determine its nature. Soin regard to the prin- 
ciple of the conservation of force; I do not think that to admit it, and its 
consequences, whatever they may be, is to be metaphysical ; on the contrary, 
if that word have any application to physics, then I think that any hypothe- 
sis, whether of heat, or electricity, or gravitation, or any other form of force, 
which either willingly or unwillingly dispenses with the principle of consery- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 179 


ation, is more liable to the charge than those which, by including it, become 
so far more strict and precise. 

Supposing that the truth of the principle of the conservation of force 1s 
assented to, I come to its uses. No hypothesis should be admitted, nor any 
assertion of a fact credited, that denies the principle. No view should be 
inconsistent or incompatible with it. Many of our hypotheses in the present 
state of science may not comprehend it, and may be unable to suggest its 
consequences ; but none should opnose or contradict it. 

If the principle be admitted, we perceive at once that a theory or defini- 
tion, though it may not contradict the principle, cannot be accepted as suf- 
ficient or complete unless the former be contained in it; that however well 
or perfectly the definition may include and represent the state of things com- 
monly considered under it, that state or result is only partial, and must not 
be accepted as exhausting the power or being the full equivalent, and there- 
fore cannot be considered as representing its whole nature; that, indeed, it 
may express only a very small part of the whole, only a residual phenome- 
non, and hence give us but little indication of the full natural truth. Allow- 
ing the principle its force, we ought, in every hypothesis, either to account 
for its consequences by saying what the changes are when force of a given 
kind apparently disappears, as when ice thaws, or else should leave space 
for the idea of the conversion. If any hypothesis, more or less trustworthy 
on other accounts, is insufficient in expressing it or incompatible with it, the 
place of deficiency or opposition should be marked as the most important for 
examination, for there lies the hope of a discovery of new laws or a new con- 
dition of force. The deficiency should never be accepted as satisfactory, but 
be remembered and used as a stimulant to further inquiry; for conversions 
of force may here be hoped for. Suppositions may be accepted for the time, 
provided they are not in contradiction with the principle. Even an increased 
or diminished capacity is better than nothing at all, because such a suppo- 
sition, if made, must be consistent with the nature of the original hypothe- 
sis, and may, therefore, by the application of experiment, be converted into 
a farther test of probable truth. The case of a force simply removed or sus- 
pended, without a transferred exertion in some other direction, appears to 
me to be absolutely impossible. 

If the principle be accepted as true, we have a right to pursue it to its con- 
sequences, no matter what they may be. It is, indeed, a duty todo so. A 
theory may be perfection, as far as it goes, but a consideration going beyond 
it, is not for that reason to be shut out. We might as well accept our 
limited horizon as the limits of the world. No magnitude, either of the 
phenomena or of the results to be dealt with, should stop our exertions to 
ascertain, by the use of the principle, that something remains to be dis- 
covered, and to trace in what direction that discovery may lie. 

I will endeavor to illustrate some of the points which have been urged, by 
reference, in the first instance, to a case of power, which has long had great at- 
tractions for me, because of its extreme simplicity, its promising nature, its 
universal presence, and its invariability under like circumstances ; on which, 


180 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


though I have experimented * and as yet failed, I think experiment would be 
well bestowed, I mean the force of gravitation. I believe I represent the 
received idea of the gravitating force aright in saying that it is a simple at- 
tractive force exerted between any two or all the particles or masses of matter, at 
every sensible distance, but with a strength varying inversely as the square of the 
distance. The usual idea of the force implies direct action at a distance ; and 
such a view appears to present little difficulty except to Newton, and a few, 
including myself, who in that respect may be of like mind with him. + 

This idea of gravity appears to me to ignore entirely the principle of the 
conservation of force; and by the terms of its definition, if taken in an ab- 
solute sense, “‘varying inversely as the square of the distance,” to be in 
direct opposition to it, and it becomes my duty now to point out where this 
contradiction occurs, and to use it in illustration of the principle of conserv- 
ation. Assume two particles of matter, A and B, in free space, and a force 
in each or in both by which they gravitate towards each other, the force 
being unalterable for an unchanging distance, but varying inversely as the 
square of the distance when the latter varies. ‘Then, at the distance of ten, 
the force may be estimated as one; whilst at the distance of one, that is, one 
tenth of the former, the force will be one hundred; and if we suppose an 
elastic spring to be introduced between the two as a measure of the attrac- 
tive force, the power compressing it will be a hundred times as much in the 
latter case as in the former. But from whence can this enormous increase 
of power come? If we say that it is the character of this force, and content 
ourselves with that as a sufficient answer, then it appears to me we admit a 
creation of power and that to an enormous amount; yet by a change of con- 
dition, so small and simple as to fail in leading the least instructed mind to 
think that it can be a sufficient cause, we should admit a result which would 
equal the highest act our minds can appreciate of the working of infinite 
power upon matter; we should let loose the highest law in physical science 
which our faculties permit us to perceive, namely} the conservation of force. 
Suppose the two particles, A and B, removed back to the greater distance 
of ten, then the force of attraction would be only a hundredth part of that 
they previously possessed ; this, according to the statement that the force 
yaries inversely as the square of the distance would double the strangeness 
of the above results; it would be an annihilation of force —an effect equal in 
its infinity and its consequences with creation, and only within the power of 
Him who has created. 

We have a right to view gravitation under every form that either its defi- 
nition or its effects can suggest to the mind ; it is our privilege to do so with 
every force in nature; and it is only by so doing that we have succeeded, to 
a large extent, in relating the various forms of power, so as to derive one 
from another, and thereby obtain confirmatory evidence of the great principle 
of the conservation of force. Then let us consider the two particles, A and 
B, as attracting each other by the force of gravitation, under another view. 
According to the definition, the force depends upon both particles, and if the 


* Philosophical Transactions, 1851, p. 1. + See second note on page 183. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 181 


particle A or B were by itself, it could not gravitate, that is, it could have 
no attraction, no force of gravity. Supposing A to exist in that isolated 
state and without gravitating force, and then B placed in relation to it, 
gravitation comes on, as is supposed, on the part of both. Now, without 
trying to imagine how B, which had no gravitating force, can raise up gray- 
itating force in A; and how A, equally without force beforehand, can raise 
up force in B, still, to imagine it as a fact done, is to admit a creation of 
force in both particles; and so to bring ourselves within the impossible con- 
sequences which have already been referred to. 

It may be said we cannot have an idea of one particle by itself, and so the 
reasoning fails. For my part I can comprehend a particle by itself just as 
easily as many particles; and though I cannot conceive the relation of a 
lone particle to gravitation, according to the limited view which is at present 
taken of that force, 1 can conceive its relation to something which -causes 
gravitation, and with which, whether the particle is alone, or one of a uni- 
verse of other particles, it is always related. But the reasoning upon a lone 
particle does not fail; for as the particles can be separated, we can easily 
conceive of the particle B being removed to an infinite distance from A, and 
then the power in A wiil be infinitely diminished. Such removal of B will 
be as if it were annihilated in regard to A, and the force in A will be annihi- 
lated at the same time; so that the case of a lone particle and that were dif- 
ferent distances only are considered become one, being identical with each 
other in their consequences. And as removal of B to an infinite distance is 
as regards A annihilation of B,so removal to the smallest degree is, in prin- 
ciple, the same thing with displacement through infinite space; the smallest 
increase in distance involves annihilation of power; the annihilation of the 
second particle, so as to have A alone, involves no other consequence in re- 
lation to gravity; there is difference in degree, but no difference in the 
character of the result. 

It seems hardly necessary to observe, that the same line of thought grows 
up in the mind, if we consider the mutual gravitating action of one particle 
and many. The particle A will attract the particle B at the distance of a 
mile with a certain degree of force ; it will attract a particle C at the same 
distance of a mile with a power equal to that by which it attracts B; if 
myriads of like particles be placed at the given distance of a mile, A will 
attract each with equal force; and if other particles be accumulated round 
it, within and without the sphere of two miles diameter, it will attract them 
all with a force varying inversely with the square of the distance. How are 
we to conceive of this force growing up in A to a million fold or more, and 
if the surrounding particles be then removed, of its diminution in an equal 
degree? Or, how are we to look upon the power raised up in all these outer 
particles by the action of A on them, or by their action one on another, 
without admitting, according to the limited definition of gravitation, the 
facile generation and annihilation of force ? 

The assumption which we make for the time with regard to the nature of 
a power (as gravity, heat, etc.), and the form of words in which we express 
it, that is, its definition, shouid be consistent with the fundamental principles 


16 


182 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of force generally. The conservation of force is a fundamental principle ; 
hence the assumption with regard to a particular form of force ought to im- 
ply what becomes of the force when its action is zncreased or diminished, or 
its direction changed ; or else the assumption should admit that it is deficient 
on that point, being only half competent to represent the force; and, in any 
case, should not be opposed to the principle of conservation. The usual 
definition of gravity as an attractive force between the particles of matter VARY- 
ING inversely as the square of the distance, whilst it stands as a full definition 
of the power, is inconsistent with the principle of the conservation of force. 
If we accept the principle, such a definition must be an imperfect account of 
the whole of the force, and is probably only a description of one exercise of 
that power, whatever the nature of the force itself may be. If the definition 
be accepted as tacitly including the conservation of force, then it ought to 
admit that consequences must occur during the suspended or diminished de- 
gree in its power as gravitation, equal in importance to the power suspended 
or hidden; being in fact equivalent to that diminution. It ought also to ad- 
mit, that it is incompetent to suggest or deal with any of the consequences 
of that changed part or condition of the force, and cannot tell whether they 
depend on, or are related to, conditions external or internal to the gravitating 
particle ; and, as it appears to me, can say neither yes nor no to any of the 
arguments or probabilities belonging to the subject. 

If the definition denies the occurrence of such contingent results, it seems 
to me to be unphilosophical ; if it simply ¢gnores them, I think it is imperfect 
aud insufficient; if it admits these things, or any part of them, then it pre- 
pares the natural philosopher to look for effects and conditions as yet un- 
known, and is open to any degree of development of the consequences and 
relations of power; by denying, it opposes a dogmatic barrier to improve- 
ment; by ignoring, it becomes in many respects an inert thing, often much 
in the way; by admitting, it rises to the dignity of a stimulus to investiga- 
tion, a pilot to human science. 

The principle of the conservation of force would lead us to assume, that 
when A and B attract each other less because of increasing distance, then 
some other exertion of power, either within or without them, is proportion- 
ately growing up; and again, that when their distance is diminished, as 
from ten to one, the power of attraction, now increased a hundred-fold, has 
been produced out of some other form of power which has been equivalently 
reduced. This enlarged assumption of the nature of gravity is not more 
metaphysical than the half assumption ; and is, I believe, more philosophical 
and more in accordance with all physical considerations. The half assump- 
tion is, in my view of the matter, more dogmatic and irrational than the 
whole, because it leaves it to be understood that power can be created and 
destroyed almost at pleasure. 

When the equivalents of the various forms of force, as far as they are 
known, are considered, their differences appear very great; thus, a grain of 
water is known to have electric relations equivalent to a very powerful flash 
of lightning. It may therefore be supposed that a very large apparent 
amount of the force causing the phenomena of gravitation, may be the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 183 


equivalent of a very small change in some unknown condition of the bodies, 
whose attraction is varying by change of distance. For my own part, many 
considerations urge my mind toward the idea of acause of gravity, which is 
not resident in the particles of matter merely, but constantly in them, and 
all space. Ihave already put forth considerations regarding gravity which 
partake of this idea,* and it seems to have been unhesitatingly accepted by 
Newton.7 

There is one wonderful condition of matter, perhaps its only true indica- 
tion, namely, znertia ; but in relation to the ordinary definition of gravity, 
it only adds to the difficulty. For if we consider two particles of matter at a 
certain distance apart, attracting each other under the power of gravity, and 
free to approach, they will approach; and when at only half the distance, 
each will have had stored up in it, because of its ¢nertia, a certain amount of 
mechanical force. This must be due to the force exerted, and, if the con- 
servation principle be true, must have consumed an equivalent proportion 
of the cause of attraction; and yet, according to the definition of gravity, the 
attractive force is not diminished thereby, but increased four-fold, the force 
growing up within itself the more rapidly, the more it is occupied in produc- 
ing other force. On the other hand, if mechanical force from without be 
used to separate the particles to twice their distance, this force is not stored 
up in momentum or by inertia, but disappears ; and three fourths of the at- 
tractive force at the first distance disappears with it. How can this be ? 

We know not the physical condition or action from which dnertia results ; 
but inertia is always a pure case of the conservation of force. It has a strict 
relation to gravity, as appears by the proportionate amount of the force 
which gravity can communicate to the inert body; but it appears to have the 
same strict relation to other forces acting at a distance as those of magnetism 
or electricity, when they are so applied by the tangential balance as to act 
independent of the gravitating force. It has the like strict relation to force 
communicated by impact, pull, or in any other way. It enables a body to 
take up and conserve a given amount of force until that force is transferred 
to other bodies, or changed into an equivalent of some other form; that is 
all that we perceive in it; and we cannot find a more striking instance 
amongst natural, or possible phenomena of the necessity of the conservation 
of force as a law of nature; or one more in contrast with the assumed vyari- 
able condition of the gravitating force supposed to reside in the particles of 
matter. 

Even gravity itself furnishes the strictest proof of the conservation of force 


* Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 1855, vol. ii., p. 10, ete. 

7 “That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one 
body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation 
of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed 
from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe, no man who has 
in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. 
Gravity must be caused by an agent, acting constantly according to certain laws; 
but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of 
my reader.’ — See Newton’s Third Letter to Bentley. 


184 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in this, that its power is unchangeable for the same distance ; and is by that 
in striking contrast with the variation which we assume in regard to the cause 
of gravity, to account for the results at different distances. 

It will not be imagined for a moment that I am opposed to what may be 
called the law of gravitating action, that is, the law by which all the known 
effects of gravity are governed; what I am considering is the definition of 
the force of gravitation. That the result of one exercise of a power may be 
inversely as the square of the distance, I believe and admit; and I know 
that it is so in the case of gravity, and has been verified to an extent that 
could hardly have been within the conception even of Newton himself when 
he gave utterance to the law; but that the totality of a force can be employed 
according to that law I do not believe, either in relation to gravitation, or 
electricity, or magnetism, or any other supposed form of power. 

I might have drawn reasons for urging a continual recollection of, and 
reference to, the principle of the conservation of force from other forms 
of power than that of gravitation; but I think that when founded on 
gravitating phenomena, they appear in their greatest simplicity; and pre- 
cisely for this reason, that gravitation has not yet been connected by any de- 
gree of convertibility with the other forms of force. If I refer for a few 
minutes to these other forms, it is only to point in their variations, to the 
proofs of the value of the principle laid down, the consistency of the known 
phenomena with it, and the suggestions of research and discovery which 
arise from it.* Heat, for instance, isa mighty form of power, and its effects 
have been greatly developed ; therefore, assumptions regarding its nature 
become useful and necessary, and philosophers try to define it. The most 
probable assumption is. that it is a motion of the particles of matter; but a 
view, at one time very popular, is, that it consists of a particular fluid of 
heat. Whether it be viewed in one way or the other, the principle of con- 
servation is admitted, I believe, with all its force. When transferred from 
one portion to another portion of like matter, the full amount of heat ap- 
pears. When transferred to matter of another kind an apparent excess or 
deficiency often results; the word ‘ capacity” is then introduced, which, 
while it acknowledges the principle of conservation, leaves space for re- 
search. When employed in changing the state of bodies, the appearance 
and disappearance of the heat is provided for consistently by the assumption 
of enlarged or diminished motion, or else space is left by the term “ capa- 
city” for the partial views which remain to be developed. When converted 
into mechanical force, in the steam or air engine, and so brought into direct 
contact with gravity, being then easily placed in relation to it, still the con- 
servation of force is fully respected and wonderfully sustained. The con- 
stant amount of heat developed in the whole of a voltaic current described 
by M. P. Favre,t and the present state of the knowledge of thermo-electric- 
ity, are again fine, partial or subordinate illustrations of the principles of 


Helmholtz, on the Conservation of Force. Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs, Second 
Sesies, 1853, p. 114. 
+ Comptes Rendus, 1854, vol. xxxix. p. 1212. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 185 


conservation. Even when rendered radiant, and for the time giving no trace 
or signs of ordinary heat action, the assumptions regarding its nature have 
provided for the belief in the conservation of force, by admitting either that 
it throws the ether into an equivalent state, in sustaining which for the time 
the power is engaged ; or else, that the motion of the particles of heat is 
employed altogether in their own transit from place to place. 

It is true that heat often becomes evident or insensible in a manner un- 
known to us; and we have a right to ask what is happening when the heat 
disappears in one part, as of the thermo-voltaic current, and appears in 
another; or when it enlarges or changes the state of bodies ; or what would 
happen, if the heat being presented, such changes were purposely opposed. 
We have a right to ask these questions, but not to ignore or deny the con- 
servation of force; and one of the highest uses of the principle is to suggest 
such inquiries. Explications of similar points are continually produced, 
and will be most abundant from the hands of those who, not desiring to 
ease their labor by forgetting the principle, are ready to admit it, either 
tacitly, or, better still, effectively, being then continually guided by it. Such 
philosophers believe that heat must do its equivalent of work; that if in 
doing work it seem to disappear, it is still producing its equivalent effect, 
though often in a manner partially or totally unknown ; and that if it give 
rise to another form of force (as we imperfectly express it), that force is 
equivalent in power to the heat which has disappeared. 

What is called chemical attraction affords equally instructive and sugges- 
tive considerations in relation to the principle of the conservation of force. 
The indestructibility of individual matter is one case, and a most important 
one, of the conservation of chemical force. A molecule has been endowed 
with powers which give rise in it to various qualities, and these never change, 
either in their nature or amount. <A particle of oxygen is ever a particle of 
oxygen—nothing can in the least wear it. If it enters into combination 
and disappears as oxygen,—if it pass through a thousand combinations, 
animal, vegetable, mineral, —if it lie hid for a thousand years and then be 
evolved, it is oxygen with its first qualities, neither more nor less. It has 
all its original force, and only that; the amount of force which it disengaged 
when hiding itself has again to be employed in a reverse direction when it is 
set at liberty; and if, hereafter, we should decompose oxygen, and find it 
compounded of other particles, we should only increase the strength of the 
proof of the conservation of force, for we should have a right to say of these 
particles, long as they have been hidden, all that we could say of the oxygen 
itself. 

Again, the body of facts included in the theory of definite proportions, 
Witnesses to the truth of the conservation of force ; and though we know little 
of the cause of the change of properties of the acting and produced bodies, 
or how the forces of the former are hid amongst those of the latter, we do 
not for an instant doubt the conservation, but are moved to look for the 
manner in which the forces are, for the time, disposed, or if they have taken 
up another form of force, to search what that form may be. 

_ Even chemical action at a distance, which is in such antithetical contrast 


16* 


186 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


with the ordinary exertion of chemical affinity, since it can produce effects 
miles away from the particles on which they depend, and which are effectual 
only by forces acting at insensible distances, still proves the same thing, the 
conservation of force. Preparations can be made for a chemical action in 
the simple voltaic circuit, but until the circuit be complete that action does 
not occur; yet in completing we can so arrange the circuit, that a distant 
chemical action, the perfect equivalent of the dominant chemical action, 
shall be produced ; and this result, whilst it establishes the electro-chemical 
equivalent of power, establishes the principle of the conservation of force 
also, and at the same time suggests many collateral inquiries which have yet 
to be made and answered, before all that concerns the conservation in this 
case can be understood. 

This and other instances of chemical action at a distance carry our inquir- 
ing thoughts on from the facts to the physical mode of the exertion of force ; 
for the qualities which seem located and fixed to certain particles of matter 
appear at a distance in connection with particles altogether different. They 
also lead our thoughts to the conversion of one form of power into another ; 
as, for instance, in the heat which the elements of a voltaic pile may either 
show at the place where they act by their combustion or combination 
together, or in the distance, where the electric spark may be rendered mani- 
fest; or in the wire of fluids of the different parts of the circuit. 

When we occupy ourselves with the dual forms of power, electricity, and 
magnetism, we find great latitude of assumption, and necessarily so, for the 
powers become more and more complicated in their conditions. But still 
there is no apparent desire to let loose the force of the principle of conserva- 
tion, even in those cases where the appearance and disappearance of force 
may seem most evident and striking. Electricity appears when there is 
consumption of no other force than that required for friction; we do not 
know how, but we search to know, not being willing to admit that the elec- 
tric force can arise out of nothing. The two electricities are developed in 
equal proportions ; and having appeared, we may dispose variously of the — 
influence of one upon successive portions of the other, causigg many 
changes in relation, yet never abie to make the sum of the force of one kind 
in the least degree exceed or come short of the sum of the other. In that 
necessity of equality, we see another direct proof of the conservation of force, 
in the midst of a thousand changes that require to be developed in their 
principles before we can consider this part of science as even moderately 
known to us. 

One assumption with regard to electricity is, that there is an electric fluid 
rendered evident by excitement in plus and minus proportions. Another 
assumption is, that there are two fluids of electricity, each particle of each 
repelling all particles like itself, and attracting all particles of the other kind 
always, and with a force proportionate to the inverse square of the distance, 
being so far anaiogous to the definition of gravity. This hypothesis is an- 
tagonistic to the law of the conservation of force, and open to all the objec- 
tions that have been, or may be, made against the ordinary definition of gray- 
ity. Another assumption is, that each particle of the two electricities has a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 187 


given amount of power, and can only attract contrary particles with the sum 
of that amount, acting upon each of two with only half the power it could in 
like circumstances exert upon one. But various as are the assumptions, the 
conservation of force (though wanting in the second) is, I think, intended 
to be included in all. I might repeat the same observations nearly in 
regard to magnetism — whether it be assumed as a fluid, or two fluids or 
electric currents — whether the external action be supposed to be action at a 
distance, or dependent on an external condition and lines of force —still, all 
are intended to admit the conservation of power as a principle to which the 
phenomena are subject. 

The principles of physical knowledge are now so far developed as to en- 
able us not merely to define or describe the known, but to state reasonable 
expectations regarding the unknown; and I think the principle of the con- 
servation of force may greatly aid experimental philosophers in that duty to 
science, which consists in the enunciation of problems to be solved. It will 
lead us, in any case where the force remaining unchanged in form is altered 
in direction only, to look for the new disposition of the force ; as in the cases 
of magnetism, static electricity, and perhaps gravity, and to ascertain that as 
a whole it remains unchanged in amount—or, if the original force disap- 
pear, either altogether or in part, it will lead us to look for the new condition 
or form of force which should result, and to develop its equivalency to the 
force that has disappeared. Likewise, when force is developed, it will cause 
us to consider the previously existing equivalent to the force so appear- 
ing; and many such cases there are in chemical action. When force dis- 
appears, as in the electric or magnetic induction after more or less discharge, 
or that of gravity with an increasing distance, it will suggest a research as to 
whether the equivalent change is one within the apparently acting bodies, or 
one erternal (in part) to them. It will also raise up inquiry as to the nature 
of the internal or external state, both before the change and after. If sup- 
posed to be external, it will suggest the necessity of a physical process, by 
which the power is communicated from body to body; and in the case of 
external action, will lead to the inquiry whether, in any case, there can be 
truly action at a distance, or whether the ether, or some other medium, is not 
necessarily present. . 

We are not permitted as yet to see the nature of the source of physical 
power, but we are allowed to see much of the consistency existing amongst 
the various forms in which it is presented to us. hus, if, in static electri. 
city, we consider an act of induction, we can perceive the consistency of all 
other like acts of induction with it. If we then take an electric current, and 
compare it with this inductive effect, we see their relation and consistency. 
In the same manner we have arrived at a knowledge of the consistency of 
magnetism with electricity, and also of chemical action and of heat with all 
the former; and if we see not the consistency between gravitation with any 
of these forms of force, I am strongly of the mind that it is because of our 
ignorance only. How imperfect would our idea of an electric current now 
be, if we were to leave out of sight its origin, its static and dynamic induc- 
tion, its magnetic influence, its chemical and heating effects; or our idea of 


188 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


any one of these results if we left any of the others unregarded? That there 
should be a power of gravitation existing by itself, having no relation to the 
other natural powers, and no respect to the law of the conservation of force, is as 
little likely as that there should be a principle of levity as well as of gravity. 
Gravity may be only the residual part of the other forces of nature, as Mos- 
siti has tried to show; but that it should fall out from the law of all other 
force, and should be outside the reach either of further experiment or philo- 
sophical conclusions, is not probable. So we must strive to learn more of 
this outstanding power, and endeavor to avoid any definition of it which is 
incompatible with the principles of force generally, for all the phenomena of 
nature lead us to believe that the great and governing Jaw isone. I would 
much rather incline to believe that bodies affecting each other by gravitation 
act by lines of force of definite amount (somewhat in the manner of magnetic 
or electric induction, though with polarity), or by an ether pervading all 
parts of space, than admit that the conservation of force could be dispensed 
with. 

It may be supposed, that one who has little or no mathematical knowl- 
edge should hardly assume a right to judge of the generality and force of a 
principle such as that which forms the subject of these remarks. My apol- 
ogy is this: I do not perceive that a mathematical mind, simply as such, has 
any advantage over an equally acute mind not mathematical, in perceiving 
the nature and power of a natural principle of action. It cannot of itself 
introduce the knowledge of any new principle. Dealing with any and every 
amount of static electricity, the mathematical mind has balanced and ad- 
justed them with wonderful advantage, and has foretold results which the 
experimentalist can do no more than verify. But it could not discover dy- 
namic-electricity, nor electro-magnetism, nor magneto-electricity, or even 
suggest them ; though when once discovered by the experimentalist, it can 
take them up with extreme facility. 

So in respect of the force of gravitation, it has calculated the results of the 
power in such a wonderful manner as to trace the known planets through 
their courses and perturbations, and in so doing has discovered a planet 
before unknown; but there may be results of the gravitating force of other 
kinds than attraction inversely as the square of the distance, of which it 
knows nothing, can discover nothing, and can neither assert nor deny their 
possibility or occurrence. Under these circumstances, a principle which may 
be accepted as equally strict with mathematical knowledge, comprehensible 
without it, applicable by all in their philosophical logic, whatever form that 
may take, and above all, suggestive, encouraging, and instructive to the 
mind of the experimentalist, should be the more earnestly employed and the 
more frequently resorted to when we are laboring either to discover new 
regions of science, or to map out and develop those which are known into 
one harmonious whole ; and if in such strivings, we, whilst applying the 
principle of conservation, see but imperfectly, still we should endeavor to 
see, for even an obscure and distorted vision is better than none. Let us, if 
we can, discover a new thing in any shape; the true appearance and charac- 
ter will be easily developed afterwards. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 189 


Some are much surprised that I should, as they think, venture to oppose 
the conclusions of Newton; but here there is a mistake. Ido not oppose 
Newton on any point; it is rather those who sustain the idea of action at a 
distance, that contradict him. Doubtful as I ought to be of myself, I am 
certainly very glad to feel that my convictions are in accordance with his 
conclusions. At the same time, those who occupy themselves with such 
matters ought not to depend altogether upon authority, but should find 
reason within themselves, after careful thought and consideration, to use and 
abide by their own judgment. Newton himself, whilst referring to those 
who were judging his views, speaks of such as are competent to form an opin- 
ion in such matters, and makes a strong distinction-between them and those 
who were incompetent for the case. 

But after all, the principle of the conservation of force may by some be 
denied. Well, then, if it be unfounded even in its application to the small- 
est part of the science of force, the proof must be within our reach, for ail 
physical science is so. In that case, discoveries as large or larger than any 
yet madc, may be anticipated. Ido not resist the search for them, for no 
one can do harm, but only good, who works with an earnest and truthful 
spirit in such a direction. But let us not admit the destruction or creation 
of force without clear and constant proof. Just as the chemist owes all the 
perfection of his science to his dependence on the certainty of gravitation ap- 
plied by the balance, so may the physical philosopher expect to find the 
greatest security and the utmost aid in the principle of the conservation of 
force. All that we have that is good and safe, as the steam-engine, the elec- 
tric-telegraph, &c., witness to that principle, —it would require a perpetual 
motion, a fire without heat, heat without a source, action without reaction, 
cause with effect, or effect without a cause, to displace it from its rank as a 
law of nature. 

MONOGENESIS OF FORCE. 

A lecture which has attracted considerable attention has been delivered 
before the Royal Institution London during the past year, by Mr. Alfred 
Smee, on the “ Monogenesis of the Physical Forces.” The conclusion to 
which Mr. Smee arrives is, that “‘ attraction acting on attracted matter is the 
source of all force, and that, therefore, every physical force has a monogene- 
tic orgin, and when generated, a truly equivalent power.” 


*DENSITY OF THE EARTH. 


The experiments of the English Astronomers in the Harton Coal Pit, ac- 
cording to Rey. S. Haughton, (Phil. Mag. [4], xii. 50), give for the mean 
density of the earth, 5-480. The pit was 1260 feet deep, and the seconds 
pendulum gained two and a quarter seconds per day at the bottom of the 
coal pit. 

But the calculations of Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal (ib. p. 231) as 
given in the same journal vol. xii. p. 231, arrive at 6°566 as the mean den- 
sity, which number at page 468 is changed to 6-809 — 6-623, the variation 
depending on the relative value of some of the observations. 


190 ANNUAL .OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


FIGURE OF THE EARTH AND THE TIDES. 


The results of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, so far as they relate 
to the earth’s figure and mean density, have been lately laid before the Royal 
Society by Col. James, the Superintendent of the Survey. The ellipticity 
deduced is s5$.33- The mean specific gravity of the earth, as obtained 
from the attraction of Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh, is 5°316; a result 
which accords satisfactorily with the mean of the results obtained by the 
torson balance. Of the accuracy of this important work, it is sufficient to 
observe, that when the length of each of the measured bases (in Salisbury 
Plain and on the shores of Lough Foyle) was computed from the other, 
through the whole series of intermediate triangles, the difference from the 
measured length was only five inches in a length of from five to seven miles. 
Our knowledge of the laws of the Tides has received an important accession 
in the results of the tidal observations made around the Irish coasts in 1851, 
under the direction of the Royal Irish Academy. The discussion of these 
observations was undertaken by Professor Haughton, and that portion of it 
which relates to the diurnal tides has been already completed and published. 
The most important result of this duscussion, is the separation of the effects 
of the sun and moon in the diurnal tide —a problem which was proposed 
by the Academy as one of the objects to be attained by the contemplated 
observations, and which has been now for the first time accomplished. 

From the comparison of these effects, Professor Haughton has drawn 
some remarkable conclusions relative to the mean depth of the sea in the 
Atlantic. In the dynamical theory of the tides, the ratio of the solar to the 
lunar effect depends not only on the masses, distances, and periodic times, 
of the two luminaries, but also on the depth of the sea, and this, accordingly, 
may be computed when the other quantities are known. In this manner, 
Professor Haughton has deduced from the solar and lunar co-efficients of the 
diurnal tide a mean depth of 5:12 miles —a result which accords in a re- 
markable manner with that inferred from the ratio of the semi-diurnal co- 
efficients, as obtained by Laplace from the Best observations. The subject, 
however, is far from being exhausted. The depth of the sea, deduced from 
the solar and lunar tidal intervals, and from the age of the lunar diurnal tide, 
is somewhat more than double of the foregoing ; and the consistency of the 
individual results in such as to indicate that their wide difference from the 
former is not attributable to errors of observation® Professor Hauehton 
throws out the conjecture that the depth, deduced from the tidal intervals and 
ages, corresponds to a different part of the ocean from that inferred from the 
heights. — Address of the Presidert British Association, 1857. 


SECULAR VARIATIONS IN LUNAR AND TERRESTRIAL MOTION FROM 
THE INFLUENCE OF TIDAL ACTION. 


The following paper by Mr. D. Vaughanof Cincinnati, was read before 
the British Association for 1857. F 
Laplace concludes from his elaborate investigations, that the rotation of 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 191 


the earth is not affected by the occurrence of the tides; nor do his formule 
reveal any permanent alteration in the motion of the lunar orb which dis- 
turbs the repose of our oceans. These results, announced by so high an 
authority, might be received without a careful examination if the fundamen- 
fal principles of natural philosophy did not discountenance the idea of an 
actual creation of power by lunar attraction. The tides constitute an im- 
portant mechanical agent; and, could their whole force be rendered availa- 
ble, it would be found adequate to several hundred times the labor of tke 
human population. So great an amount of motive power, whether appro- 
priated to the great purposes of nature and art, or wasted in overcoming 
fziction, cannot be produced without some expense ; and my present object 
is to trace the change which it involves in the motions of the earth and the 
moon.- As the extreme disproportion between the momentum of the oceanic 
waters and that of the planetary bodies is the chief source of error in these 
investigations, I shall commence by showing how the tidal action should 
operate, if the moon moved around the earth in an exact circle, situated in 
the plane of the equator, and not more than 34,000 miles in diameter. Her 
periodical revolution, in this case, would occupy nearly twelve hours, and 
the lumar day would be about twenty-four hours in length. The tidal action 
on the seas nearest to the moon would be almost twice as great as on those 
most distant ; the former being about 5,000 times, and the latter over 2,500 
times, the disturbing action now exerted by the moon on the watery domain. 
The aqueous appendage of our planet would, in this case, form two great 
movable oceans, sustained on its opposite sides by the attraction of our satel- 
lite, and keeping pace with her movements. Without taking into considera- 
tion oscillations of the solid part of the earth which might possibly occur in 
these circumstances, it is evident that there should be a general flow of the 
waters from west to east; and though the current may be alternately re- 
versed in deep channels, the force propelling it in an eastern direction should 
always maintain the ascendency. A vast body of water, circulating around 
the earth from west to east, could not fail to accelerate its rotary motion ; 
although the result would not be exhibited by the formula of Laplace. The 
moon, in this case, would sustain a loss of momentum to a more considera- 
ble extent. It is well known that the attraction of mountains modifies the 
direction of terrestrial gravity in their vicinity ; and that a plumb-line on 
that part of the equator immediately west of the Andes would be slightly 
deflected to the east. In the case we have supposed, the direction of terres- 
trial gravity would experience a similar deflexion at places in conjunction 
with the moon from the attraction of the excess of waters which swelled be- 
hind her. Accordingly, the lunar orb would be drawn, not directly to the 
earth’s centre, but always to a point a little westward of it, and a constant 
loss of motion would be an inevitable consequence. It would be different 
if the earth could preserve an invariable form, for in that case its attraction 
on a satellite being always directed to the centre, or alternately deflected east 
and west of that point, the loss and gain of motion should be evenly balanced 
after one or many revolutions. Other investigations lead to the same con- 
clusion. A satellite revolving just beyond the confines of ‘our atmosphere, 


192 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


would alternately accelerate and retard the movements of one more distant ; 
and physical astronomy shows, that, in our planetary systems a like period- 
icity results from the inequality of the times in which the several planets 
perform their revolutions. But, as the tide-wave rolls around the earth with 
the same mean angular velocity as the moon, their mutual action will not 
exhibit the periodicity which characterizes planetary disturbances. In the 
analytical solution of this problem, the equation depending on the differ- 
ence of motion of the moon and the tide-wave would acquire by integration 
a divisor infinitely small; and this proves its secular character. If Laplace 
finds no such divisors, it is because all the modifications in the action of the 
moon on the waters of the ocean are not embracegl in his investigations on 
the subject. Leaving the supposed case, we shall now pass to the actual 
condition of the agencies concerned in tidal phenomena on our globe. At 
her present distance the revolution of the moon occupies more time than the 
earth’s period of rotation ; and the tidal wave which has the greatest disturb- 
ing influence being always east of our satellite, must add to its velocity, 
while it retards that of the earth. We may remark, however, that the ad- 
ditional velocity imparted to the moon would give her a larger orbit, and in- 
crease the period of her revolution. Hence the orbital motion of the moon, 
as well as the rotary motion of the earth, sustain a loss depending on the 
difference of the tidal force on opposite sides of our globe, and so very 
insignificant, that some millions of years would be required to cause a re- 
duction of one per cent, in the momenta of these vast bodies. I must, how- 
ever, question the results of Laplace, who finds that the change in the 
length of the day has not amounted to the one hundredth part of a second 
during the last 2,000 years. This conclusion is based on a comparison of 
ancient and modern eclipses ; and the time of the earth’s rotation is thus as- 
certained from the revolutions of the moon, making corrections for the dis- 
turbances operating on the latter body. But all the disturbing influences 
have not been yet taken into consideration ; and as the one noticed in the 
present article operates on the earth and moon, we cannot regard either of 
these bodies as an infallible chronometer for measuring the vast ages of 
eternity. 


ON THE DIRECTION OF GRAVITY ON THE EARTH’S SURFACE. 


Professor Hennessy, in a paper before the British Association, Dubtin, 
stated that for all practical purposes the direction of gravity was considered 
perpendicular to the earth’s surface, and a similar assumption was often 
made in writings claiming a high degree of scientific accuracy. This arose 
from defining the earth’s surface as the surface of equilibrium of the waters. 
If the earth were stripped of its fluid covering, the irregular surface so laid 
bare would present considerable inequalities. From what is now known re- 
garding the depth of the ocean, the continents would appear as plateaus 
elevated above the oceanic depressions to an amount which, although small 
compared to the earth’s radius, would be considerable when compared to its 
outswelling at the equator, and its flattening towards the poles. The sur- 
face thus presented would be the true surface of the earth, and would not be 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 198 


perpendicular to gravity. If a kind of mean surface be conceived intersect- 
ing this, so as to leave equal volumes above of elevations, and of depres- 
sions below it, it is not allowable to assume that such a surface is perpendic- 
ular to gravity. The mean surface of the solid crust of the earth would not 
be perpendicular to gravity, if, after the process of solidification had com- 
menced, any extensive changes in the distribution of matter in the earth’s 
interior could take place. If the fluid matter in solidifying underwent no 
change of volume, the forms of the strata of equal density within the earth 
would be the same at every stage of its solidification. But if, as observa- 
tion indicates, such fused matter, on passing to the solid crystalline state, 
should diminish in volume, the pressure on the remaining strata of the fluid 
would be relieved, and they would tend to assume a greater ellipticity than 
they had when existing under a greater pressure. The general result of this 
action would manifestly be to produce a change in the direction of the at- 
tractive forces at the outer surface of the solid crust. The direction of a 
plumb-line would be slightly altered so as to slightly increase the apparent 
latitudes of places over a zone intermediate between the equator and poles. 
—M. D’Abbadie stated several cases which he had met with, where monu- 
ments existed which showed that the direction of gravity, at some former 
period, must have been very different in relation to those particular portions 
of the earth from what it now was.— Other Members also noticed deviations 
of the plumb-line from its normal position, and some of them which seemed 
to depend on the season of the year.— The President, Dr. Robinson, stated 
that he was the first to direct attention to those changes of level which de- 
pended on the season of the year. ‘This he was led to observe from the fact 
that the entire mass of rock and hill on which the Armagh Observatory was 
erected was found to beslightly, but to an astronomer quite perceptibly, tilted 
or canted at one season to the east, at another, to the west. This he had at 
first attributed to the varying power of the sun’s radiation to heat and ex- 
pand the rock throughout the year; but he since had reason to attribute it 
rather to the infiltration of water to the parts where the clay, slate, and 

limestone rock met in their geological arrangement. The varying quantity 
of this through the year he now believed exercised a powerful hydrostatic 
energia, by which the position of the rock was slightly varied. 


ON THE RECENT DISCOVERIES RELATIVE TO HEAT. 


In the whole range of experimental science there is no fact more familiar, 
or longer known, than the development of Heat by friction. The most ig- 
norant savage is acquainted with it, —it was probably known to the first gen- 
eration of mankind. Yet, familiar as it is, the science of which it is the germ 
dates back but a very few years. It was known from the time of Black, 
that heat disappeared in producing certain changes of state in bodies, and 
re-appeared when the order of those changes was reversed; and that the 
amount of heat, thus converted, had a given relation to the effect produced. 
In one of these changes — namely, evaporation — a definite mechanical force 
is developed, which is again absorbed when the vapor is restored by pressure 
to the liquid state. It was, therefore, not unnatural to conjecture, that in all 

17 


194 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


cases in which heat is developed by mechanical action, or vice versd, a defi- 
nite relation would be found to subsist between the amount ef the action 
and that of the heat developed or absorbed. ‘This conjecture was put to the 
test of experiment by Mayer and Joule, in 1842, and was verified by the re- 
sult. It was found that heat and mechanical power were mutually convertible ; 
and that the relation between them was definite, 772 foot-pounds of motive 
power being equivalent to a unit of heat — that is, to the amount of heat re- 
quisite to raise a pound of water through one degree of Fahrenheit. The 
science of Thermodynamics, based upon this fact, and upon a few other ob- 
vious facts or self-evident principles, has grown up in the hands of Clausius, 
Thomson, and Rankine, into large proportions, and is each day making fresh 
conquests from the region of the unknown. ‘Thus far the science of heat 
is made to rest wholly upon the facts of experiment, and is independent of 
any hypothesis respecting the molecular constitution of bodies. ‘The dynam- 
ical theory of heat, however, has materially aided in establishing true phys- 
ical conceptions of the nature of heat. The old hypothesis of caloric, as a 
separate substance, was indeed rendered improbable by the experiments of 
Rumford and Davy, and by the reasonings of Young; but it continued to 
hold its ground, and is interwoven into the language of science. It is now 
clearly shown to be self-contradictory ; and to lead to the result that the 
amount of heat in the universe may be indefinitely augmented. On the 
other hand, the identification of radiant heat with light, and the establish- 
ment of the wave-theory, left little doubt that heat consisted in a vibratory 
movement either of the molecules of bodies or of the ether within them, 
Still, the relation of heat to bodies, and the phenomena of conduction, indi- 
cate a mechanism of amore complicated kind than that of light, and leave 
ample room for further speculation. ‘The only mechanical hypothesis (so 
far as I am aware) which is consistent with the present state of our knowl- 
edge of the phenomena of heat, is the theory of molecular vortices of Mr. 
Rankine. In this theory all bodies are supposed to consist of atoms, com- 
posed of nuclex surrounded with elastic atmospheres. The radiation of light 
and heat is ascribed to the transmission of oscillations of the nuclei; while 
thermometric heat is supposed to consist in circulating currents or vortices, 
amongst the particles of their atmospheres, whereby they tend to recede from 
the nuclei, and to occupy a greater space. From this hypothesis Mr. Rankine 
has deduced all the laws of thermo-dynamies, by the application of known 
mechanical principles. He has-also, from the same principles, deduced rela- 
tions (which have been confirmed by experiment) between the pressure, den- 
sity and absolute temperature of elastic fluids, and between the pressure and 
temperature of ebullition of liquids. The dynamical theory of heat ena- 
bles us to frame some conjectures to account for the continuance of its sup- 
ply, and even to speculate as to its source. The heat of the sun is dissi- 
pated and lost by radiation; and must be progressively diminished unless 
its thermal energy be supplied. According to the measurements of M. Pou- 
illet, the quantity of heat given out by the sun in a year is equal to that 
which would be produced by the combustion of a stratum of coal seven- 
teen miles in thickness ; and if the sun’s capacity for heat be assumed equal 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 195 


to that of water, and the heat be supposed to be drawn uniformly from 
its entire mass, its temperature would thereby undergo a diminution of 2° 
4: Fahr. annuaily. On the other hand, there is a vast store of force in our 
system capable of conversion into heat. If, as is indicated by the small den- 
sity of the sun, and by other circumstances, that body has not yet reached 
the condition of incompressibility, we have, in the future approximation of 
its parts, a fund of heat probably quite large enough to supply the wants of 
the human family to the end of its sojourn here. It has been calculated that 
an amount of condensation, which would diminish the diameter of the sun 
by only the ten-thousandth part, would suffice to restore the heat emitted in 
2000 years. Again, on our own earth, vis viva is destroyed by friction in the 
ebb and flow of every tide, and must therefore re appear as heat. The amount 
of this must be considerable, and should not be overlooked in any estima- 
tion of the physical changes of our globe. According to the computation 
of Bessel, 25,000 cubic miles of water flow in every six hours from one 
quarter of the earth to another. The store of mechanical force is thus di- 
minished, and the temperature of our globe augmented by every tide. We 
_ do not possess the data which would enable us to calculate the magnitude of 
these effects. All that we know with certainty is, that the resultant effect of 
all the thermal agencies to which the earth is exposed has undergone no per- 
ceptible change with the historic period. We owe this fine deduction to Ar- 
ago. In order that the date palm should ripen its fruit, the mean tempera- 
ture of the place must exceed 70° Fahr.; and, on the other hand, the vine 
cannot by cultivated successfully when the temperature is 72° or upwards. 
Hence, the mean temperature of any place at which these two plants flour- 
ished and bore fruit must lie between these narrow limits, ¢. e. could not dif- 
fer from 71° Fahr. by more thana single degree. Now, from the Bible we 
learn that both plants were szmultancously cultivated in the central valleys of 
Palestine in the time of Moses; and its then temperature is thus definitely 
determined. It is the same at the present time; so that the mean tempera- 
ture of this portion of the globe has not sensibly altered in the course of 
thirty-three centuries. 

The future of physical science seems to lie in the path upon which three of 
the ablest British physicists have so boldly entered, and in which they have 
already made such large advances. I may, therefore, be permitted briefly to 
touch upon the successive steps in this lofty generalization, and to indicate 
the goal to which they tend. It has been long known, that many of the 
forces of nature are related. Thus, heat is produced by mechanical action, 
when that is applied in bringing the atoms of bodies nearer by compression, 
or when it is expended in friction. Heat is developed by electricity, when 
the free passage of the latter is impeded. It is produced whenever light is 
absorbed ; and it is generated by chemical action. A like interchangeability 
probably exists among all the other forces of nature, although in many 
the relations have not been so long perceived. Thus, the development of 
electricity from chemical action dates from the observations of Galvani; and 
the production of magnetism by electricity from the discovery of Oersted. 
The next great step was to perceive that the relation of the physical forces 


196 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


was mutual; and that of any two, compared together, either may stand to 
the other in the relation of cause. With respect to heat and mechanical 
force, this has been long known. . When a body is compressed by mechani- 
cal force, it gives out heat; and, on the other hand, when it is heated, it di- 
lates, and evolves power. The knowledge of the action of electricity in dis- 
solving the bonds of chemical union followed closely upon that of the in- 
verse phenomenon; and the discovery of electro-magnetism by Oersted was 
soon followed by that of magneto-electricity by Faraday. With reason, there- 
fore, it occurred to many minds that the relations of any two of the forces 
of nature were mutual —that that which is the cause, in one mode of inter- 
action, may become the effect, when the order of the phenomena is changed ; 
—and that, therefore, in the words of Mr. Grove, one of the able expound- 
ers of these views, while they are “ correlative,” or reciprocally dependent, 
“neither, taken abstractly, can be said to be the essential cause of the oth- 
ers.” Buta further step remained to be taken. If these forces were not 
only related, but mutually related, was it not probable that the relation was 
also a definite one? ‘Thus, when heat is developed by mechanical action, 
ought we not to expecta certain definite proportion to subsist between the 
interacting forces, so that if one were doubled or trebled in amount, the 
other should undergo a proportionate change? This anticipation, it has 
been already stated, has been realized by Mayer and Joule. The discovery 
of the mechanical equivalent of heat has been rapidly followed by that of 
other forces ; and we now know, not only that electricity, magnetism, and 
chemical action, in given quantities, will produce each a definite amount of 
mechanical work, but we know further — chiefly through the labors of Mr. 
Joule — what that relation is, or, in other words, the mechanical equivalent of 
each force. The first step in this important career of discovery — though 
long unperceived in its relation to the rest — was, undoubtedly, Faraday’s 
great discovery of the definite chemical effect of the voltaic current. The 
last will probably be to reduce all these phenomena to modes of motion, and 
to apply to them the known principies of dynamics, in such a way as not 
only to express the laws of each kind of movement, as it is in itself, and also 
the connection and dependence of the different classes of the phenomena. 

A bold attempt at such a generalization has been made by M. Helmholtz. 
The science of Thermodynamics starts from the principle, that perpetual 
motion is impossible, or, in other words, that we cannot, by any combination 
of natural bodies, produce force out of nothing. In mechanical force, this 
principle is reducible to the known law of the conservation of vis viva; and 
M. Helmholtz has accordingly endeavored to show that this law is main- 
tained in the interaction of all the natural forces; while, at the same time, 
the assumption of its truth leads to some new consequences in physics, not 
yet experimentally confirmed. Expressed in its most general form, this 
principle asserts that the gain of vis viva during the motion of a system, is 
equal to the force consumed in producing it; from which it follows, that the 
sum of the wires vive, and of the existing forces, is constant. This princi- 
ple M. Helmholtz denominates the conservation of force. A very important 
consequence of its establishment must be, that all the actions of nature are 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. _ 197 


due to attractive and repulsive forces, whose intensity is a function of the 
distance — the conservation of vis viva holding only for such forces. It is 
usually stated, in mechanical works, that there is a loss of vis viva in the 
collision of inelastic bedies, and in friction. This is true with respect to the 
motion of masses, which forms the subject of mechanical science as at pres- 
ent limited; but it is not true in a larger sense. In these, and such-like 
cases, the movement of masses is transformed into molecular motion, and 
thus re-appears as heat, electricity, and chemical action; and the amount 
of the transformed action definitely corresponds to the mechanical force 
which was apparently lost. In the cases just considered, mechanical action 
is converted into molecular. But molecular actions of different kinds are 
themselves, in like manner, interchangeable. Thus, when light is absorbed, 
vis viva is apparently lost; but —not to speak of phosphorescence, in which 
the light absorbed, or a portion of it, is again given out —in all such cases 
heat and chemical action are developed, and in amount corresponding to the 
loss. Hence the apparent exceptions to the principle are in reality confir- 
mations of it; and we learn that the quantity of force in nature is as un- 
changeable as the quantity of matter. This, however, is not true of the 
quantity of available force. It follows from Carnot’s law, that heat can be 
converted in mechanical work only when it passes from a warmer to a colder 
body. But the radiation and conduction by which this is effected tend to bring 
about an equilibrium of temperature, and therefore to annihilate mechanical 
force: and the same destruction of energy is going forward in the other 
processes of nature. Thus, it follows from the law of Carnot, as Prof. 
Thomson has shown, that the universe tends to a state of eternal rest; and 
that its store of available force must be at length exhausted. Mr. Rankine 
has attempted, in another method, to combine the physical sciences into one 
System, by distinguishing the properties which the various classes of physi- 
cal phenomena possess in common, and by taking for axioms propositions 
which comprehend their laws. The principles thus obtained are applicable 
to all physical change; and they possess all the certainty of the facts from 
which they are derived by induction. The subject matter of the seience so 
constituted is energy, or the capacity to effect changes ; and its fundamental 
principles are, first, that all kinds of energy and work are homogeneous — or 
in other words, that any kind of energy may be made the means of performing 
any kind of work; and, secondly, that the total energy of a substance can- 
not be altered by the mutual action of its parts. From these principles the 
author has deduced some very general laws of the transformation of energy, 
which include the known relations of physical forces. — Dr. Loyd’s Address 
before the British Association, 1857. 


ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEAT IN AGITATED WATER. 


Mr. G. Rennie, in a communication to the British Association on the 
above subject, stated that the subject of the mechanical or dynamic force re- 
quired to raise a given quantitity of water one degree of Fahrenheit had 
long been the object of the research of philosophers, ever since Count Rum- 
ford, in his celebrated experiments on the evolution of heat in boring guns 


LV 


198 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


when surrounded by ice or water, proved the power required to raise one 
pound of water one degree, and which he valued at the dynamic equivalent 
of 1,034 Ibs. M. Moya was the first who announced that heat was evolved 
from agitated water. The second was Mr. Joule, who announced that heat 
was evolved by water passing through narrow tubes, and by this method 
each degree of heat required for its evolution a mechanical force of 770 lbs. 
Subsequently, in 1845 and 1847 he arrived at a dynamical equivalent of 
772 lbs. These experiments had since been confirmed by other philosophers 
on the Continent. In the present paper, Mr. Rennie stated that his atten- 
tion was called to the subject by observing the evolution of heat by the sea 
in a storm, by the heat from water running in sluices. He, therefore, pre- 
pared an apparatus similar to a patent churn, somewhat similar to that 
adopted by Mr. Joule, but on a large scale. In the first case, he experi- 
mented on fifty gallons, or 500 Ibs. of water, inclosed in a cubical box, and 
driven by a steam engine instead of a weight falling from a given height, as 
in Mr. Joule’s experiment ; secondly, on a smaller scale, by 10 lbs. of water 
inclosed in a box. The large machine or churn was driven at a slow veloc- 
ity of eighty-eight evolutions per minute, and the smaller machine at 
the rate of 232 evolutions per minute, so that the heat given off by the wa- 
ter in the large box was only at the rate of three and a half degrees per 
hour, including the heat lost by radiation ; whereas the heat evolved by the 
ten gallons of water contained in the small box agitated at 232 evolutions 
was fifty-six degrees Fahrenheit per hour. Thus the temperature of the 
water in the large box was raised from sixty degrees to 144 degrees, and 
the temperature of the water in the small box to boiling point. As an illus- 
tration, an egg was boiled hard in six minutes. The mechanical equivalent, 
in the first case, was found to approximate nearly to that of Mr. Joule, but 
in the latter case it was considerably above his equivalent, arising, very 
probably, from the difficulty of measuring accurately the retarding forces. 


PRELIMINARY RESEARCHES ON THE ALLEGED INFLUENCE OF 
* SOLAR LIGHT ON THE PROCESS OF COMBUSTION. 


The following is an abstract of a paper read before the American Associ- 
ation for the promotion of Science, on the above subject, by Prof. J. L. Conte. 

A popular opinion has long prevailed in England, and perhaps in other 
couniries, that the admission of the light of the sun to an ordinary fire tends 
to retard the process of combustion. In some instances, the practice of 
placing screens before the fireplace, or of closing the shutters of the apart. 
ment, may be traced to the prevalent belief, that the access of sunlight to 
the burning materials is unfavorable to the continuance of the phenomenon 
of combustion. Most physical philosophers very naturally regard this opin- 
ion as a mere popular prejudice ; probably originating in the well-known ap- 
parent dulling or obscuration of flames and of solid bodies in a state of ig- 
nition,— which takes place when they are exposed to strong light. The 
flame of a jet of burning hydrogen is scarcely visible in the diffused light of 
a clear day; that of an ordinary alcohol lamp is barely appreciable to the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 199 


eye when exposed to the direct sunshine ; while a portion of ignited char- 
coal, which glows in the dark, appears to be extinguished when placed in 
the sunlight. These familiar phenomena, attributable to well-established 
physico-physiological laws, seem to afford a much more rational explana- 
tion of the origin of the popular opinion, than to suppose it to be based 
upon accurate observations relating to the actual rapidity of burning. 

In the year 1825, Dr. Thomas McKeever, of England, published a series 
of experiments in the Annals of Philosophy, which seemed to show that 
there is a real foundation for the popular opinion, and that solar light does 
actually retard the process of combustion. ‘These results were copied by 
the contemporary scientific journals, and were considered as proving be- 
yond a doubt, that what had previously been esteemed a “ vulgar error,” 
was, in reality, an instinctive popular induction, based upon experience and 
observation. Even Gmelin, in his Hand Book of Chemistry, announces Dr. 
McKeever’s conclusions, witlfeut expressing any misgivings in relation to 
their accuracy. 

The important bearing which these results seem to have on the influence 
of solar light on chemical processes, as well as on certain modern theories, in- 
duced Professor Le Conte, during the months of May and June last, to un- 
dertake a series of experiments with the view of testing the validity of Dr. 
McKeever’s conclusions. In order to understand what follows, it is neces- 
sary to state that Dr. McKeever made his experiments by determining the 
rate of burning of tapers and candles, when the combustion took place al- 
ternately in a darkened room, and in the sunshine in the open air. In every 
ease he found the combustion was more rapid in the dark than in the sun- 
shine; the excess in the former varying from five to eleven per cent. He 
supposes this effect to be owing to the well-known influence of the solar rays 
on many chemical processes ;— in some instances accelerating them, but in 
others retarding them. Under this point of view, the chemical rays may be 
supposed to exercise a deoxidizing power, which, to some extent, interferes 
with the rapid oxidation of the combustible matter. In confirmation of 
this opinion, Dr. McKeever made an experiment which appears to indicate 
that a taper burns more rapidly in the red than in the violet extremity of the 
solar spectrum. 

In attempting a repetition of these experiments, Professor Le Conte found 
it impossible to secure that freedom from agitation in the atmosphere which 
the investigation demanded, so long as he pursued Dr. McKcever’s plan of 
exposing the burning body to the sunshine in the open air. There were, like- 
wise, other considerations which urged him to modify the method of inves- 
tigation ; and among others, it occurred to him, that, as in Dr. McKeever’s 
experiments, the temperature of the air which supplied oxygen for combus- 
tion in the sunshine, was about 12° above that in the darkened room, the 
rarefaction produced by teat might exercise some influence in retarding the 
rate of burning in the sunlight. He also desired to exaggerate the supposed 
influence, by using a concentrated pencil of solar light instead of ordinary 
sunshine. 

In conducting his experiments Prof. Le Conte endeavored to secure two 
conditions, viz: 


200 MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 


1. Absolute calmness in the atmosphere. 

2. Exposure of the flame to the influence of intense solar light, without 
heating the surrounding air. 

The first condition was secured by performing all of the experiments in a 
large lecture room, with all of the doors and windows closed. To secure 
the second condition, he employed a portion of the apparatus belonging to 
a large solar microscope, consising of the reflecting mirror, the condensing 
lens and tube, together with the mechanical arrangements for adjusting the 
direction of the light. As the condensing lens was upwards of four inches 
in diameter, the intensity of the light could be increased nearly tenfold : so 
that its effects ought to be enormously exaggerated. This arrangement cut 
off all of the influence of exterior agitations of the atmosphere; while the 
concentrated pencil of light, thus thrown on the flame, traversed it, as well 
as the surrounding air, without imparting a sensible amount of heat to the 
latter. ‘ 

In his experiments, Prof. Le Conte used the best wax-candles. By al- 
lowing them to burn a sufficient length of time to form a well-defined cup 
for the melted wax, and carefully turning the wicks so as to render them self- 
snuffing, the combustion was found to go on with remarkable uniformity in a 
calm atmosphere. The rate of burning was determined in the following 
manner :— A portion of candle, three or four inches in length, was secured 
to the bottom of one of the scale pans of a tall balance and ignited; after 
allowing it to burn for ten or fifteen minutes, so as to secure a steady flame 
of constant size, it was nearly balanced by added weights to the opposite 
scale-pan, allowing a slight preponderance to the candle-pan. Ina short time 
the equilibrium was established by the burning of the candle; the precise 
time at which the balance indicated a condition of equilibrium was accurately 
noted. Next, a given weight, (say sixty or one hundred grains,) was with- 
drawn from the weight-pan, and the time of restoring the equilibrium by the 
loss of weight in the burning candle, was, in like manner, recorded. In this 
manner, the rate of combustion was determined by observing the time occu- 
pied in consuming a given weight of the burning matter. ‘The arrangements 
described above, enabled him to perform such experiments alternately in the 
darkened room, and in the concentrated sunbeam, without moving any por- 
tion of the apparatus in the room, and under external conditions as nearly 
identical as could be desired. Many preliminary experinents were made for 
the purpose of testing the delicacy of the arrangements, which very soon 
showed that no reliable results could be obtained unless the air was calm, 
and also, unless the candle was allowed to burn a sufficient length of time to 
establish regularity in the process of combustion. The days selected for the 
experiments, were perfectly cloudless. The state of the barometer and ther- 
mometer were carefully noted. The cone of sunlight was so direct, that its 
lower margin illuminated the charred portion of the wick of the candle, 
while the upper boundary of the pencil traversed the flame near its apex. 

Under these circumstances, Prof. Le Conte found the rate of combustion 
to be sensibly the same in the dark and in the sunshine; the slight varia-— 
tions not exceeding the limits of experimeatal inaccuracies. These negative . 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 201 


results are considered more significant, from the fact that if light exercised 
the decided retarding influence on the rate of combustion which Dr. M’Kee- 
yer’s experiments seemed to indicate, we might reasonably anticipate a 
much more striking effect, when its intensity was increased tenfold by the 
action of a lens. Prof. Le Conte thinks that the results obtained by Dr. 
M’Keever were not produced by the influence of solar light, but by want of 
identity in the external conditions, and particularly by the higher tempera- 
ture of the air which supplied the combustion in the sunshine, and the irreg- 
ular agitations to which it was subjected in his mode of experimenting. 
Piof. Le Conte’s own experiments afford striking illustration of the effects 
produced by comparatively slight alterations in the external conditions, on 
the rate of combustion. For, although he found the rate of burning to be the 
same in the dark and in the sunshine, on any given day, yet it varied from 
day to day, according to the barometric pressure and temperature of the air. 
This fact led him to investigate the probable effects of the three external 
conditions which may be supposed to influence the process of combustion. 
These are, first, barometric pressure; second, temperature of the air; and 
third, amount of aqueous vapor present. 

1. Inasmuch as an increase or diminution of barometric pressure, ceteris 
paribus, necessarily augments or lessens the density of the air, and conse- 
quently influences the amount of oxygen contained in a given volume, we 
should a priori expect that it must exercise a corresponding effect on the 
rate of combustion. But we are not left to mere conjecture on this point. 
The experiments of Sir Humphry Davy prove that combustion is accelerated 
in condensed, while it is retarded in rarefied air. But the most striking and 
satisfactory experiment on the effects of condensed air in accelerating the 
process of burning, were those furnished incidentally, by M. Triger, a 
French Civil Engineer, in the year 1841, during the operations necessary 
for working a bed of coal underlying the alluvium bordering the river Loire, 
in the Department of Main-et-Loire. In traversing an overlying stratum 
of quicksand from fifty-nine to sixty-five and a half feet thick, he found it 
requisite to devise some means of excluding the semifluid quicksand and 
waiter, which found their way under every arrangement analogous to ordin- 
ary cofjerdams, in such quantity as to defy all pumping operations intend- 
ed to keep them dry. For this purpose, M. Triger employed large sheet- 
iron cylinders, about 3°39 feet in interior diameter, securely closed at the 
top, in which, — by means of a condensing pump incessantly worked by a 
steam-engine, —air was condensed to an amount sufficient to counteract 
the external hydrostatic pressure. The ingenious contrivance fully justified 
the expectations of the engineer; but the workmen were thus compelled to 
labor in air condensed under a pressure of about three atmospheres. Among 
other curious results of this state of things noticed by M. Triger, were the 
remarkable effects of condensed air on combustion. Much annoyance was 
at first experienced from the rapid combustion of the candles; which was 
only obviated by substituting flax for cotton threads in the wicks. 

On the contrary, the observations of Mr. J. Mitchell, quartermaster of 
artillery of the English army, at Bangalore, in India, prove conclusively 


202 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


that the “fuses of shells”? burn more slowly at elevated stations, where the 
atmosphere is rarefied. At altitudes of 3,000, 6,500 and 7,300 feet, the rates 
of burning were found to be respectively 10, 20 and 27 per cent. slower than 
at the artillery dépot. These facts seem to render it certain that any in- 
crease in the density of the air must accelerate combustion, while rarefaction 
must have an opposite effect. 

It has long been a matter of common observation, that ordinary wood- 
fives burn more freely when the barometer is high; but, Mr. Marcus Bull 
and others maintain, that this result is not owing to the augmented den- 
sity of the air, but to the greater dryness of the atmosphere. The facts 
brought forward in this paper, are strongly opposed to this explanation ; 
for, there are not the slightest grounds for supposing, that there was ess than 
the ordinary amount of aqueous vapor present in the condensing cylinders 
of M. Triger ; or more than the usual quantity mixed with the air at the ele- 
vated stations in India. On the contrary, physical considerations lead us 
to precisely opposite conclusions. 

2. In relation to the influence of the temperature of the air on the process 
of combustion, Professor Le Conte admitted that our information was very 
meagre. He showed that the experiments of Davy and others do not touch 
the question, inasmuch as they do not refer to the effect of temperature on 
the rate of burning. He contended, however, that so far as increase of tem- 
perature influences the density of the air, it is sufficiently evident, ceteris 
paribus, that its effect must be equivalent to a diminution of barometric pres- 
sure, and consequently, must tend to retard combustion. In like manner, as- 
suming the temperature of the flame to be constant, it was shown that the 
draught created by it must be diminished in a warm atmosphere, and there- 
by tend to retard the rate of burning in hot weather. On the other hand, an 
augmentation of temperature might tend to accelerate the combustion by fa- 
voring the liquefaction of the wax, and facilitating the oxidation of the 
combustible matter. The last two effects were considered comparatively 
insignificant ; and hence the conclusion was drawn, that the principal in- 
fluence which temperature exercises on the rate of combustion is connected 
with its effects on the density of the air; and that, consequently, an increase 
of temperature should, ceteris paribus, retard the process. 

8. In relation to the influence of the hygrometric condition of the air on 
combustion. 

Sir Humphry Davy found that “a very large quantity ” of steam was re- 
quired to prevent sulphur from burning; that an explosive mixture of oxy- 
gen and hydrogen, when mixed with five times its volume of steam, still ex- 
ploded by the electric spark; and that a mixture of air and carburetted 
hydrogen gas, required “a third of steam to prevent its explosion, whereas 
one fifth of azote produced the effect.” Under any point of view, it is ob- 
vious, that the presence of aqueous vapor can only tend to retard the process 
of combustion. rst, because it diminishes the amount of oxygen in a given 
volume of air, and secondly, because an admixture of any inactive gas tends 
to extinguish the burning body, as is abundantly proved by the experiments 
of Sir H. Davy and others. When vapor is present in large quantities, 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 203 


there can be no doubt of its controlling agency on combustion. This is il- 
lustrated by the successful application of the plan proposed by M. Dujardin 
of Lille, in 1837, for extinguishing fires occurring in steam-ships, by per- 
mitting the steam from the boilers to escape into the apartment in which the 
combustion originates. But experiments are still wanting, for determining 
its influence on the rate of burning, when existing in the small quantities in 
which it is usually associated with the atmosphere. The experimental re- 
searches of Mr. David Waldie, in relation to the mixture of various gases 
with air, led him to the general law, that, ‘‘ Of incombustible gases which re- 
main undecomposed, the power of preventing combustion is in the order of 
their density ;”’ and that, “ This effect of density in cooling the flame de- 
pends on the excessive diffusion of the flame in the denser gas.” Under or- 
dinary circumstances, the density of the aqueous vapor existing in the air is 
comparatively small, so that, according to Mr. Waldie’s law, its influence 
on combustion ought not to be very striking. 

Having illustrated the infiuence of these three external conditions, Pro- 
fessor Le Conte next proceeded to investigate whether these were adequate 
to explain the variations in the rates of burning as indicated by observation. 
The observations requisite for testing the effects of aqueous vapor were 
wanting ; but the effects of barometric pressure and temperature, were sub- 
jected to a quantitative test, on the assumption that the rapidity of combus- 
tion varies directly as the density of the air., By the application of a ma- 
thematical formula, he was enabled to apply this test to his own experi- 
ments.” The ratios between the rates of combustion, were thus compared 
with the ratios between the corresponding densities of the air under different 
circumstances. The general result of this comparison was, that the varia- 
tions in the density of the air are not adequate to explain the whole of the 
differences in the rates of burning; they explain the greater part of these 
differences, but there is a small per centage of excess in the rates of combus- 
tion, which he thinks attributable to the influence of aqueous vapor, and per- 
haps other causes not yet considered. 

In the present stage of the investigation, Professor Le Conte thinks that 
two deductions are warranted. 1. That solar light does not seem to exercise 
any sensible influence en the process of combustion. 2. That variation in 
the density of the air does exercise a very decided influence on the rapidity 
of the process: the rate of burning increasing with every increment of den- 
sity, and vice versa: but the exact ratio between them remains to be de- 
termined. 


ON THE NATURE OF HEAT. 


At the recent meeting of the German Association for the Promotion of 
Science, Baron Baumgartner discussed the alteration of some fundamental 
ideas concerning the nature of heat, which would probably take place in con- 
sequence of recent researches. About half a century ago, every series of sim- 
ilar phenomena was explained by the hypothesis of a special imponderable 
fluid. The undulatory theory of light led the way in the opposition to this 


materialistic tendency, and the devclopmcunt of the undulatory-theory offers. 


204 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


remarkable analogies with the progress of the Copernican system. The 
theory of heat has now arrived at the same stage as had the theory of light 
when Young made his appearance in the scientific world. Bacon’s striking 
axiom, ‘‘ What is heat for sensation is motion taken under an objective point 
of view;” with the results of Rumford and Davy, caused doubts as to the 
existence of a calorific matter; the precise exposition of a possible transmu- 
tation of moving into molecular force completely overthrew the o!d theory. 
Radiating heat, objectively identical to luminous rays, is the thermic phe- 
nomenon in its abstract form ; luminous ether must therefore be considered 
the material substratum of these phenomena. The explanation of the phe- 
nomena of transmitted or conducted heat is connected with some more dif- 
ficulties, but may be made more easy by the following considerations. A 
ray falling on a material medium is partly reflected ; at the same time three 
different effects may take place —viz., a. the ray passes through the me- 
dium, without producing any change in it; b. the ether contained in the 
medium is set in motion, the body is heated, or, as it is (although improp- 
erly) said, “it absorbs heat ;” (it is the absorbed heat which elevates the 
temperature of the body, and we use this expression, because a body en- 
dowed with sensitive faculty perceives the sensation of heat — a sensation 
determined generally, not by the quantity of motion, which constitutes the 
quantity of heat, but by the celerity of the particles passing through the 
position of rest ;) c. the passage of the ray is attended by the excitation of 
heat. Culoric capacity is the faculty to receive a certain quantity of liv- 
ing power. Heat expands bodies, and this expansion is assumed as the 
measure of temperature. This effect, however, is not the immediate result 
of the oscillatory movement; a portion of it, proportional to the living 
power of the oscillation, is changed into operative power, which is the im- 
mediate consequence of expansion. This process may be still better under- 
stood by the action of an electric current running along a conducting wire, 
and converting itself into heat by contriving to overcome an obstacle. A 
similar process takes place with regard to caloric capacity whenever the 
volume of any body undergoes any change. A body has more capacity for 
heat (to use the still prevailing expression) whilst its volume is variable, 
than under a constant pressure, because a portion of the heat which it as- 
sumes is converted into operative power. 


ON THE SPHEROIDAL STATE OF LIQUIDS. 


With respect to the cause of the singular phenomena, known as the sphe- 
roidal state of liquids, differences of opinion still exist among men of science. 
The appearance of the drop on the heated surface suggests the idea that the 
liquid and metal are not in contact with each other; such a breach of con- 
tact, however, has been denied, and to determine this point, Poggendorff 
devised the following ingenious experiment : — 

Let a b be a section of the basin, d that of the drop; into d let a platinum 
wire descend, which is united with the negative pole, p, of a small galvanic 
battery ; a second platinum wire, m n, communicates with the positive pole 
of the battery, and is placed in contact with the metallic basin, a 6. Into the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 205 


circuit thus formed is introduced a galvanometer, g, consisting of a magnetic 
needle, which swings freely within a coil of covered copper wire: the passage 
of an electric current through the coil 
being, as is well known, rendered man- 
ifest by the deflection of the needle. 
Let the drop, d, be rendered a good 
conductor of electricity, by slightly 
acidulating it; if it were in contact 
with the basin, the circuit would at 
no place be interrupted; the current 
would pass without hindrance from n 
to the basin, thence through the drop 
to the platinum wire, e, and thence 
through the galvanometer to the 
eS other pole of the battery. In its 
m ju passage it would deflect the needle 
of the galvanometer, and thus give 
evidence of its presence. It is, how- 
ever, found that when the basin is 
heated, and the drop has assumed the spheroidal state, no current passes ; 
and this certainly indicates the existence of an interval which interrupts the 
circuit between the basin and the drop. Let the lamp which heats the 
basin be now removed ; after a time the drop sinks, comes into contact with 
the basin, and at that instant the needle of the galvanometer flies aside, thus 
demonstrating the passage of the current.” 


INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE ON CAPILLARY ATTRACTION. 


The influence of temperature on capillarity, considered null by some au- 
thors, is still real. Lalande was the first to announce it, 1768; he showed 
« that water did not stand as high when it was hot, or when the tube had been 
heated before making the experiment. Laplace and Poisson deduced from 
it that the height had some relation to the density of the liquid. Many em- 
inent physicists have treated of this question, and from their results a wide 
divergence has been brought about between mathematical theory and ex- 
periment, and a complete separation of the phenomena of ascension and de- 
pression. All these questions have been taken up from their foundation and 
definitely resolved by the laborious researches of M. Wolf, Professor of 
Physics at the Lyceum of Strasburg, which have been continued through 
several years. The following are the facts arrived at : — 

1. The elevation of the same liquid in capillary tubes depends, other 
things equal, on the nature of the tube. 

2. In the same tube, at different temperatures, the height to which a liquid 
rises is in the compound proportion of the density and the curvature of the 
meniscus ; this diminishes as the temperature increases, and becomes null 
at some specific temperature beyond which, the action is the reverse. The 
law of variation of pressure with the temperature for liquids which do not 
wet the glass, thus connects with the law of diminution of capillary eleva- 


18 


206 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tion, and becomes a consequence of it. For if, at a given temperature, a 
liquid ceases to wet the glass, beyond this temperature the liquid takes a 
convex surface and depresses itself; whence it follows, that liquids like 
mercury not wetting the glass at the ordinary temperature, can wet it at a 
temperature quite low, and so present under the action of cold the same 
series of phenomena which either presents under that of heat. 


ON THE HEAT-CONDUCTING POWER OF MERCURY. 


At the recent meeting of the German Association for the promotion of sci- 
ence, Prof. Frankenheim read a paper “On the Heat-conducting Power of 
Mercury.” The investigations of Fouricr and Poisson determined the relation 
between the phenomena of conduction and those of radiation, the last made 
uniform by the use of varnishes. Mercury was enclosed in iron tubes, and 
thermometers, wrapped in thin membranes, plunged into them, the mobility 
of the mercury having been previously diminished by its amalgamation with 
small quantities of zinc. A constant temperature could be maintained only 
after a few hours’ waiting. Prof. Frankenheim found that mercury ranked 
high among the best metallic conductors, both of heat and electricity. The 
theoretical views, founded on the lately prevailing supposition that liquid 
substances possess very little, if any, conductive power, rest on an erroneous 
argument, attaching excessive importance to the state of aggregation. Ac- 
cording to Prof. Frankenheim’s definition, elasticity in solid and in liquid 
bodies has this difference: that in the latter the particles may undergo rota- 
tion without giving rise to the manifestation of any force, while in the former, 
rotation and manifestation of force are essentially connected. 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF METALS ON RADIANT HEAT. 


The results of a recent investigation on this subject, by Prof. H. Knob- 
lunch, of Halle, may be stated to be as follows: 

1. Metals, as gold, silver, and platinum, when in thin layers, are to, be 
regarded as diathermanous bodies, which permit a portion of the calorific 
rays to pass through them; which portion naturally becomes less as the 
thickness of the layer increases. 

In thus transmitting the calorific rays, certain metals, as gold and silver, 
exercise an elective absorption, similar to that of colored transparent bodies 
upon light. Others, on the contrary, like platinum, act in the same manner 
upon all rays, and are therefore to be regarded as analogous to colorless 
bodies in the case of light. 

2. In the case of diffuse reflection, also, certain metals, such as gold, 
silver, mercury, copper and brass, similar to colored and opaque bodies as 
regards light, exercise an elective absorption upon the calorific rays, in con- 
sequence of which the properties of the latter are altered. Others, on the 
contrary, for example, platinum, iron, tin, zine, lead, alloy of lead, and tin, 
German silver, reflect all kinds of calorific rays in the same proportion, ex- 
actly as colorless opaque bodies do with regard to light. 

The properties which distinguish calorific rays reflected from metals, from 
unreflected heat, are so far dependent on the source of heat, that differences, 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 207 


for example, which exhibit themselves in a striking manner when solar heat 
is made use of, are diminished in the case of a Locatelli lamp, and com- 
pletely disappear when the source or heat is a metallic cylinder not heated to 
redness. 

The surface has the power cither of causing the differences to appear in 
their maximum degree, or to disappear totally, according as the surface 
produces a diffuse or a regular reflection. f 

The same is true of the change of the angle of incidence. In the case of 
arough metallic surface, as the angle of the rays with the surface dimin- 
~ishes, the reflection passes gradually from the diffuse to the regular, and at 
the same time the differences between the reflected and unreflected heat 
also gradual!y becomes less, until finally both have exactly the same charac- 
ter. — Poggendorff’s Annalen, vol. ci., 1857. 


GAUNTLETT’S IMPROVEMENTS IN THERMOMETRIC APPARATUS. 


When it is considered of what immense value to mankind the great prin- 
ciple of heat has become in the present day, and how extensively that prin- 
ciple is applied in almost every branch of manufacturing industry, it is sin- 
gular that hitherto no instrument of any practical utility has been devised to 
measure its intensity (beyond the limit of the ordinary mercurial thermome- 
ter), and to register its variations. 

A thermometer recently patented by Mr. W. H. Gauntlett, an iron master 
of England, is constructed with a view to meet this deficiency, and to sup- 
ply a want which has been long felt by iron masters and others engaged in 
manufacturing operations. Since the discovery made in the year 1819, that 
by heating the air forced into the blast furnace, a considerable saving of fuel 
could be effected in the smelting of minerals, the use of the hot blast has 
become almost universal; but it does not appear that, up to the present 
time, any reliable means has been employed to indicate and register the tem- 
perature of the air admitted into the furnace —a matter which js possibly 
of more importance in the economical production of metal than is generally 
supposed. 

The principal feature in this pyrometer, and that which constitutes its 
chief value, is its capability of being used under pressure, as in a steam 
boiler, gasworks, hot-air ovens, or any confined medium where it would be 
impossible to apply the ordinary thermometer, as the sensitive part of this 
instrument, which is acted upon by the heat, does not require to be with- 
drawn, but communicates the result to the needle, which is exposed to view 
on the dial plate, and moves on the slightest variation of temperature. 

In the construction of this instrument the well-known principle of the ex- 
pansion of metals, as well as most other substances by heat, has been 
adopted. This principle has been brought into action in a very simple 
manner as follows: Two tubes or rods of different metals, which expand at 
different ratios when affected by heat, are firmly attached to each other at 
one end ; the other end of these are left free, but connected by toothed gear- 
ing in the following manner: To the end of one tube is fixed a graduated 


208 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


dial plate, on the axis of which is placed a pointer and pinion. ‘To the end 
of the other tube is fixed a toothed rack, which communicates motion to the 
pinion. Hence, when the temperature varies, the tubes will vary in their 
expansion and contraction, and the pointer will indicate on the dial the 
temperature for the time being to which the thermometric apparatus has 
been subjected. 

The advantage of the instrument consists in its capability of indicating 
degrees of heat beyond the limits of the ordinary mercury thermometer, its 
power being only limited by a temperature so high as to cause the metals of 
which it is composed to lose their rigidity. Its advantage also consists in 
the heat acting directly upon the sensitive part of the instrument, no inter- 
vening substance such as glass being made use of, as in the case of the mer- 
cury thermometer, unfitting that instrument to be applied to high tempe- 
rature from the danger of its being destroyed by reason of the glass tube 
flying to pieces. 

These pyrometers have been in use for some months past at several iron- 
works in the north of England, and we understand have been very highly 
approved of. 


ON THE EFFECTS OF HEAT ON THE COLOR OF DISSOLVED SALTS. 


Dr. Gladstone, in a paper before the British Association, Dublin, stated 
that if a colored salt be dissolved in water, heating the solution does not 
usually affect the color of it. In not a few cases, however, the color is ren- 
dered more intense, and altered somewhat in its character. Among the ecx- 
amples mentioned were ferricyanide of potassium, meconate of iron, 
chloride and bromide of palladium. In other cases, heating the solution 
produces apparently a total change of color; for instance, chloride of copper 
passes when heated from blue to green; chloride of nickel from a bluish to a 
yellowish green ; sulphocyanide of cobalt, or chloride of cobalt dissolved in 
aqueous alcohol, from a pale red to a deep bluish purple. In all these in- 
stances héat causes the absorption of a larger quantity of rays by the solu- 
tion; but this appears to depend sometimes upon some purely physical 
cause, at other times upon some chemical change. With ferricyanide of 
potassium, and similar salts, a certain thickness of the heated solution pro- 
duces precisely the same effect on the spectrum as an increased thickness of 
the same solution when cold. With chloride of copper, and similar salts, 
the somewhat dilute solution when heated, produces the same effect on the 
spectrum as the same solution when concentrated and cold, —these salts 
being all of that character which is altered in color by the addition of water. 


ON THE SOLIDIFICATION OF FLUIDS. 


In a paper on the above subject, submitted to the British Association, 
Dublin, ty Prof. Hennessy, the views put forward were deduced from some 
propositions in the dynamical theory of heat contained in the writings of 
Prof. W. Thomson and Prof. Clausius. The general result arrived at re- 
garding the influence of pressure on a fluid so circumstanced as to lose no 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 209 


part of the heat acquired by condensation would be, that so long as the 

matter continued in a fluid condition, the resistance to compression from 

this cause would be very small. If, liowever, the fluid were on the point of 

changing its state to that of solidity, the effect of the latent heat of fusion 
which by hypothesis could not be emitted, would interpose a resistance of 

great magnitude compared to that resulting from simple compression. The 
fused matter of which the interior of the earth most probably consists, would 
be under conditions similar to those mentioned, from the slow conducting 
power of the materials composing the earth, and from the pressure of all the 

outermost strata of equilibrium of the fluid upon those near the centre, and 

thus the influence of pressure in promoting solidification would be less than 
af its surface. 


ON SIMULTANEOUS ISOTHERMAL LINES. 


Professor Hennessy, in a paper before the British Association, at its recent 
meeting on the above subject, called attention to the importance of studying 
the simultaneous distribution of temperature. The movements of the winds, 
and in general almost all the daily perturbations of the atmosphere, depend- 
ing much more on simultaneous conditions of temperature in different places 
than on the mean amount, over long periods, it would be desirable to at- 
tempt to trace the former class of lines when we attempt to obtain a complete 
connection between the different classes of atmospheric phenomena. If 
temperature were recorded at every station on the surface of the earth at the 
mean time corresponding to any given meridian, then a line traversing the 
places where such temperature were found to be equal, would be a simulta- 
neous isothermal line. The forms of such lines would manifestly depend cn 
the diurnal range of temperature at the several stations, as well as the seve- 
ral physical conditions influencing mean temperature. If the earth were 
absolutely at rest, and stripped of its fluid coverings, these lines would be 
circles, having their planes perpendicular to a line joining the centres of the 
earth and sun. This would be nearly the case in a body turning very 
slowly on its axis, like our satellite, in which Prof. Hennessy anticipated 
that observations would ultimately show a great diminution of heat radiated 
from the edges compared to the centre. With a more rapid motion of rota- 
tion, as in the case.of the earth, the isothermals would be elongated in a 
direction parallel to that of the rotation. On introducing the influence of all 
the actual motions of the earth, and of the emissive and absorbing powers of 
the atmosphere, the ground, and the sea, the forms of these lines would be 
considerably modified. The forms of these lines on the land and sea would 
necessarily differ, and might be expected to present some important relations 
to the directions of land and sea breezes. It appears, in general, far more 
probable that a knowledge of the contemporancous conditions of tempe- 
rature at different places would assist in pointing to a connection between 
these phenomena and atmospheric perturbations rather than a knowledge 
of mean temperature. Atmospheric currents, whether vertical or parallel to 
the earth’s surface, depend upon contemporaneous differences of tempera- 


18* 


210 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ture. A similar remark might be applied to many other important atmos- 

pheric phenomena, and these lines would also serve to indicate more clearly, 

or to lessen the possibility of the supposed connection between terrestrial 
magnetism and terrestrial temperature. 


RECENT DISCOVERIES IN RELATION TO LIGHT. 


The most important of the recent additions to the theory of Light have 
been those made by M. Jamin. It has been long known that metals differed 
from transparent bodies, in their action on light, in this, that plane-polarized 
light reflected from their surfaces became elliptically polarized; and the 
phenomenon is explained on the principles of the wave-theory, by the d8- 
sumption that the vibration of the ether undergoes a change of phase at the 
instant of reflection, the amount of which is dependent on its direction and 
on the angle of incidence. This supposed distinction, however, was soon 
found not to be absolute. Mr. Airy showed that diamond reflected light in a 
manner similar to metals ; and Mr. Dale and Professor Powell extended the 
property to all bodies having a high refractive power. But it was not until 
lately, that M. Jamin proved that there is no distinction in this respect 
between transparent and metallic bodies; that all bodies transform plane- 
polarized into elliptically-polarized light, and impress a change of phase at 
the moment of reflection. Prof. Haughton has followed up the researches 
of M. Jamin, and established the existence of eircularly-polarized light by 
reflection from transparent surfaces. 

The theoretical investigations connected with this subject afford a remark- 
able illustration of one of those impediments to the progress of Natural 
Philosophy, which Bacon has put in the foremost place among his examples 
of the /dola. I mean the tendency of the human mind to suppose a greater 
simplicity and uniformity in nature than exists there. The phenomena of 
polarization compel us to admit that the sensible luminous vibrations are 
transversal, or in the plane of the wave itself; and it was naturally supposed 
by Fresnel, and after him by M’Cullagh and Neumann, either that no normal 
vibrations were propagated, or that, if they were, they had no relation to the 
phenomena of light. We now learn that it is by them that the phase is 
modified in the act of reflection; and that, consequently, no dynamical 
theory which neglects them, or sets them aside, can be complete. 

Attention has been lately recalled to a fundamental position of the wave- 
theory of light, respecting which opposite assumptions have beenmade. The 
vibrations of a polarized ray are all parallel to a fixed direction in the plane 
of the wave; but that direction may be either parallel or perpendicular to the 
plane of polarization. In the original theory of Fresnel, the latter was 
assumed to be the fact; and in this assumption Fresnel has been followed by 
Cauchy. In the modified theories of M’Cullagh and Neumann, on the 
other hand, the vibrations are supposed to be parallel to the plane of polari- 
zation. This opposition of the two theories was compensated, as respects 
the results, by other differences in their hypothetical principles; and both 
of them led to conclusions which observation has verified. There seemed, 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 211 


therefore, to be no means left to the theorist to decide between these conflict- 
ing hypotheses, until Prof. Stokes recently, in applying the dynamical theory 
of light to other classes of phenomena, found one in which the effects should 
differ on the two assumptions. When the light is transmitted through a fine 
grating, it is turned aside, or diffracted, according to laws which the wave- 
theory has explained. Now, Prof. Stokes has shown that, when the incident 
light is polarized, the plane of vibration of the diffracted ray must differ from 
that of the incident, the two planes being connected by a very simple rela- 
tion. It only remained, therefore, for observation to determine whether the 
planes of polarization of the incident and refracted rays were similarly re- 
lated or not. The experiment was undertaken by Prof. Stokes himself, and 
he has inferred from it that the original hypothesis of Fresnel is the true one. 
But, as an opposite result has been obtained by M. Holtzmann, on repeating 
the experiment, the question must be regarded as still undetermined. 

The difference in the experimental results is ascribed by Prof. Stokes to 
the difference in the nature of the gratings employed by himself and by the 
German experimentalist, the substance of the diffracting body being sup- 
posed to exert an effect upon the polarization of the light, which is diffracted 
by it under a great obliquity. I learn from Prof. Stokes that he proposed to 
resume the experimental inquiry, and to test this supposition by employing 
gratings of various substances. If the conjecture should prove to be well 
founded, it will greatly complicate the dynamical theory of light. In the 
mean time the hypothesis is one of importance in itself, and deserves to be 
verified or disproved by independent means. I would venture to suggest 
that it may be effectively tested by means of the beautiful Interference-refrac- 
tor of M. Jamin, which the inventor has already applied to study the effects 
upon light produced by grazing a plate of eny soluble substance inclosed in 
a fluid. It is well known that the refractive index of bodies increases with 
their density; and the theory of emission has even expressed the law of 
their mutual dependence. That theory, it is true, is now completely over- 
thrown by the decisive experimentum crucis of M.M. Fizeau and Foucault. 
It was, therefore, probable, a priori, that this law —the only one peculiar to 
the theory —should be found wanting. Its truth has recently been put to 
an experimental test by M. Jamin. Water, it is known, has its maximum 
of density at about 40° of Fahrenheit ; and accordingly, if Newton’s law were 
true, its refractive index should also have a maximum value at the same 
temperatare. This has been disproved by M. Jamin, by observing the inter- 
ference of two rays, one of which has passed through air, and the other 
through water; and thus the last conclusion of the emission-theory has been 
set aside. — President’s Address, British Association, 1857. 


EXPERIMENTS ON THE ACTINIC POWER OF THE SUN. 


The following account of experiments made by Mr. J. J. Waterston, at 
Bombay, on the limit of the photographic power of the sun’s direct light, 
have recently been communicated to the Astronomical Society, G. B. They 
were made with the view of obtaining data in an inquiry as to the possibility 


212 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of measuring the diameter of the sun to a very minute fraction of a second, 
by combining photography with the principle of the electric telegraph; the 
first being employed to measure the element space, the latter the element 
time. The result is, that about one twenty-thousandth of a second is suf- 
ficient exposure to the direct light of the sun to obtain a distinct mark ¢ on a 
sensitive collodion plate, when Wepeoned by the usual processes. 

A circular wooden disc, nineteen inches diameter and half-an-inch thick, 
was mounted on an iron axis, so that it revolved easily by an impulse given 
by pressing the finger with a jerk on the outer edge. 

- About half-an-inch from the rim there was a circular aperture half-an-inch 
‘diameter, at the back of which the black paper was pasted. This paper was 
perforated by a needle, leaving a hole one-sixtieth of an inch diameter. 
It was found that the utmost velocity that could be given to the disc was five 
revolutions in a second ; and after four seconds, it was reduced to three revo- 
lutions per second. At each revolution the space described by the hole was 
about fifty inches. 

The revolving disc was placed behind the folding doors of a darkened 
chamber, so that when one wing was opened to the extent of a few inches, 
the sun’s light struck the disc at the lower part of its revolution. Having 
made the preliminary arrangements, the observation was as follows : — 

First, the maximum rotatory motion was given to the disc. A prepared 
sensitive plate was held close behind the disc (about a quarter of an inch 
from it), at the part where the sunshine struck. This plate was kept slowly 
moving in the direction of the radius of the disc. An assistant quickly 
opened and shut the door, allowing the sunshine to act for about a second. 
The latent image on the plate being developed, was found to consist of four 
or five concentric lines. This was repeated several times with different 
plates. 

Taking the velocity of the aperture to be 150 inches per second, which is 
certainly under the mark, and the breadth of the hole one-sixtieth of an 
inch, the duration of the sun’s full action on any one point must have been 
about one-nine-thousandth of a second. 

The photographic process employed was as follows :— 

“ Albumen on glass iodized by tincture of iodine, twenty grains to one 
ounce of spirit. 

“The silver bath, fifty grains nitrate of silver to one ounce water, and 
twelve drops nitric acid. 

“The developing solution three parts water to one of acetic acid, and the 
mixture nearly saturated with protosulphate of iron.” 

The above was afterwards tried comparatively with the collodion pro- 
cess, and found to be considerably inferior in quickness ef taking an impres- 
sion, the ratio being two or three to one. 


ON THE USE OF THE PRISM IN QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. 


Dr. Gladstone, in a paper read before the London Chemical Society, re- 
cently, remarked that hitherto the indications of color have played a very 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 213 


subordinate part in qualitative analysis. This the author believed to have 
arisen from the fact, that chemists have been content with observing the 
color as it appears to the unaided eye. The color of any object, however, is 
the resultant of the various rays of the spectrum which it reflects or trans- 
mits; and by examining such objects with a prism strange peculiarities are 
frequently made manifest among substances of similar color, and strange 
analogies are often detected among substances which appear very different in 
color when their light is not thus analyzed. 

Various methods of using the prism were described ; that preferred from 
its easy application and great delicacy, was to view the light entering by a 
slit in the window shutters by means of a prism, the liquid to be examined 
being interposed in a wedge-shaped glass vessel, held in such a position that 
the line of light is seen through the varying thicknesses of the solution. In 
this way spectra of very characteristic configuration are obtained, all the 
rays being usually permitted to pass through the thinnest stratum of the 
liquid, but as the stratum gradually increases some of these rays are entire- 
ly absorbed, others are rendered faint in color, while others are transmitted 
with almost undiminished brilliancy. These spectra may be easily copied ; 
indeed, the paper was illustrated by a number of diagrams done in colored 
crayons on black paper. 

It has been partially recognized hitherto that all the compounds of a par- 
ticular base or acid have the same effect on the rays of light. Thus, the 
various salts of nickel are green, those of zinc colorless. But the prism con- 
firms the truth of this generalization in a very remarkable manner, and re- 
veals not, indeed, an identity, but a distinct analogy in cases which were be- 
fore thought to offer an exception. Many of these apparently exceptional 
instances were investigated. Thus there are two modifications of chromium 
salts in solution, the green and the blue, while other salts of this base always 
appear red ; yet when these solutions are examined by the prism they all ex- 
hibit the same configuration of spectrum, the maxima of luminosity being 
always in the extreme red, and about the junction of the green and blue 
marked by the fixed line F; the differences of apparent color depend on 
slight variations in the relative quantity of these rays that are transmitted. 
Observations were likewise made on the blue and red salts of cobalt, and 
the green and blue salts of copper, and it was found that these changes de- 
pended solely on the quantity of water, while there were certain analogies 
even between the spectra afforded by these differently colored combinations 
of the same metal. Ferric salts all transmit the red ray with great facility ; 
they were divided into several groups, the members of each group possessing 
other analogies likewise. All soluble chromates, though differing consider- 
ably to the unaided eye, give almost the same prismatic appearance. The 
changes that take place in a solution of litmus by the addition of an alkali, 
boracic acid, or a common acid were likewise examined, and the spectra 
transmitted in the different cases were shown to belong to the same type. 
When two substances combine, each of which imparts a particular color to 
its combinations, the resultant is not the compound of the two colors, but is 


214 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 
due simply to those rays of the spectrum which are transmitted by both. 
Instances of this both in mixtures and in chemical combinations were given. 
From the fact of a particular ray being transmitted through a solution of 
unknown composition, we may infer that none of those bodies which in 
ordinary combination absorb that ray are present in any kind of combina- 
tion. The prism also will frequently give more positive information respect- 
ing the composition of a substance, as was illustrated by the fact that salts 
of nickel, protoxide of iron, and of uranium, and some salts of chromium, 
copper, ferric oxide, and molybdenum, besides ferridcyanides and certain 
compound colored salts, are all green, yet they are easily discriminated by 
the prism. Dr. Gladstone believed that the prism might occupy a similar 
place in our laboratories to that now occupied by the blowpipe. 


ON THE LIGHT OF SUNS, METEORS AND TEMPORARY STARS. 


The following paper, by Mr. D. Vaughan, of Cincinnati, was read before 
the British Association at its last meeting : — 

Modern science recognizes shooting stars, fire-balls, and meteoric stones, 
as bodies which enter our atmosphere from external space with immense ve- 
locities. From the great elevation at which these objects are luminous, it has 
been inferred that their light has little or no dependence on aerial action ; and, 
indeed, the presence of the air alone could not account for the greatness of 
the illumination which marks their approach to the earth, but ceases when 
they enter the dense stratum of the atmosphere. The diameter of many 
luminous meteors has been estimated at two or three thousand feet; and 
the globe of light which they exhibited must have been several million times 
greater than the largest meteoric stone yet found on the earth’s surface. It 
is supposed that these brilliant exhibitions are produced by cosmical masses 
several hundred yards in diameter, which, in traversing the platietary 
regions, occasionally sweep through the verge of our atmosphere, and, after 
casting a few fragments on the earth, continue their course through space. 
But the idea that such wandering bodies should graze our planet so often, 
without ever striking it directly or falling to its surface, is too extravagant 
to be seriously entertained. It would be far more likely that, during a naval 
engagement, a ship should be almost touched by several thousand balls, 
without being ever struck by a single one. Moreover, there is not the slight- 
est evidence that meteorites ever perform such remarkable feats of precision, 
or experience so many narrow escapes from a collision with the earth, fer, 
instead of being observed departing into space, they suddenly disappear after 
their encounter with the air. The small amount of solid matter which falls 
to the ground on these occasions is justly regarded as inadequate to evolve 
so vast a body of light by acting on the rarefied air at great clevations; but 
our globe seems to be invested with an atmosphere of ether, having far more 
wonderful properties. Astronomical investigations prove the existence of a 
rare medium pervading all space; and this subtle fluid cannot be wholly in- 
sensible to chemical forces, which alone could render it useful in nature’s 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 215 


economy. Extreme rarity would, indeed, prevent it from undergoing any 
chemical change in the inter-planetary regions; but it is compressed to a 
much greater density about the vast spheres by which space is tenanted. 
The atmospheres of this fluid enveloping the earth and the other large 
planets, are not sufficiently dense for chemical action, except in cases where 
they receive an additional pressure from meteoric bodies sweeping through 
them with wonderful rapidity. The evolution of light on such occasions 
depends not only on the size and velocity of the falling mass, but also on 
the direction in which it approaches the planetary surface; and observation 
shows that the most brilliant meteors move very nearly parallel to the hori- 
zon. But around the sun a much stronger attractive force gives this ethereal 
fluid the compression necessary for a constant chemical action, and a steady 
development of light; while the realms of space furnish inexhaustible sup- 
plies of the luciferous matter, and impart perpetual brilliancy to the great 
luminary of our system. It is not possible that the self-luminous condition 
of the sun could be maintained by any combustible, or light-yielding matter, 
of which it is composed. From a comparison of the relative intensity of 
solar, lunar, and artificial light, as determined by Euler and Wollaston, it 
appears that the rays of the sun have an illuminating power equal to that of 
14,000 candles, at a distance of one foot; or of 3500,000000,000000,000000,- 
000000 candles, at a distance of 95,000,000 miles. It follows that the 
amount of light which flows from the solar orb could be scarcely produced 
by the daily combustion of 200 globes of tallow, each equal to the earth in 
magnitude. A sphere of combustible matter much larger than the sun 
itself should be consumed every ten years in maintaining its wonderful bril- 
liancy, and its atmosphere, if pure oxygen, would be expended before a few 
days in supporting so great a conflagration. An illumination on so vast a 
scale could be kept up only by the inexhaustible magazine of ether dissemi- 
nated through space, and ever ready to manifest its luciferous properties on 
large spheres, whose attraction renders it sufficiently dense for the play of 
chemical affinity. Accordingly, suns derive the power of shedding perpet- 
ual light, not from their chemical constitution, but from their immense mass 
and their superior attractive power. We thus obtain some definite knowl- 
edge respecting the stupendous magnitude of the fixed stars; and making 
due-allowance for their density, we may confidently pronounce the smallest 
stellar body several thousand times greater than the globe we inhabit. This 
theory gives considerable support to the views which many astronomers 
maintain, on different grounds, in regard to the felative brilliancy of the 
stars ; for it appears that, though the self-luminous occupants of space are 
not necessarily equal in size, they differ much less than we might anticipate 
from an acquaintance with the members of our planetary system. That the 
light of the sun is furnished, not by its solid or liquid matter, but by its lu- 
minous atmosphere, has been proved very conclusively from the observations 
with Arago’s polarizing telescope. There is also evidence that this lucifer- 
ous enyelop is constantly replenished by supplies of ether from space. The 
sun’s rotation assists in effecting this object by expelling the fluid from its 
equatorial regions, and thus creating a corresponding influx at its poles. 


216 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


A displacement by this means would evidently cause the solar atmosphere 
to advance constantly from its poles to its equator; and such a movement 
is indicated by the change in the position of the sun’s spots, which, accord- 
ing to the observations of Peters for many years, are continually diminish- 
ing their heliocentric latitude. The progressive motion of the solar orb 
through space tends also to replenish its atmosphere with fresh material for 
the maintenance of its light; and the position of the large planets has some 
influence on the amount of ether which it receives from the celestial domain. 
The periodicity observed in the solar spots, and some changes exhibited by 
many variable stars, may be ascribed to an effect of this kind. But the 
result would be far more decided if a sun had large planets in its immediate 
vicinity ; for the attraction of these bodies would alter the pressure on its 
ethereal atmosphere, and produce a corresponding variation in the develop- 
ment of its light. On this principle we may explain several phenomena 
connected with the variable stars; and I may remark, that Argelander 
regards many of their peculiarities as indicating, that planets revolving 
around some suns affect the generation of light in their photospheres. But 
a planet revolving in an orbit of the smallest size possible would be pro- 
ductive of more remarkable consequences. Sweeping through the ethereal 
atmosphere of the great central sphere, it would impart a sufficient degree 
of pressure for luciferous action ; and exhibit, on a grand scale, the evolu- 
tion of light which accompanies the visits cf meteoric masses to the earth. 
From the great brilliancy of meteors which move in a horizontal direction, 
it is evident that a satellite revolving around a large globe, at a small dis- 
tance above its surface, should be favored with all the conditions necessary 
for a sublime meteoric illumination; and it is probable that some of the 
bright tenants of space may shine by light originating from such a cause. 
Indeed, the resistance of the space-pervading medium must constantly di- 
minish the orbits of all satellites; and, aftcr innumerable years, bring them 
into such a proximity with their central bodies that such grand meteoric 
phenomena would be almost inevitable. If space contain dark systems (as* 
is generally believed), the central orb which presides over each of them 
would become luminous, when one of its planets was passing through the 
final stage of existence. In a paper read at the last meeting of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of Science, and published in, the 
“ Proceedings,” (pp. 111 —113), I have shown that the stability of satellites 
could no longer exist if their orbits were reduced to a certain limit; and 
that the attraction of the primary body would render them incapable of pre- 
serving a planetary form. In like manner, a member of one of the dark 
systems of space, when brought too near its central orb, would be likewise 
doomed to suffer a dismemberment; and the fragments resulting from the 
mighty wreck would immediately scatter into separate orbits. Instead, 
therefore, of closing its planetary career as one vast meteor, the attendant 
should form a host of meteoric masses, and thus send forth far greater floods 
of light into space. But the fragments, gradually assuming circular orbits, 
would ultimately form a ring similar to that around Saturn; and as this 
change advanced, the light should constantly decline until it ceased when 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 217 


the ether partook of the motion of the fragmentary host, and became almost 
‘insensible to their pressure. It is to occurrences of this kind, which must 
occasionally take place in the wide domains of creation, that we may ascribe 
the appearance of temporary stars, and in doing so, we obtain a satisfactory 
explanation of the various peculiarities which they exhibit. The existence, 


on our own sphere, of the ether which acts so important a part in the scene: 


of celestial wonders is indicated by certam electrical phenomena. On its 
presence seems to depend the evolution of light attending the passage of 
electricity through the vacuum of an exhausted receiver, and the light of 
the aurora borealis appears to be evolved by electric action from the ethereal 
fluid, which arrives at the polar regions from space. It is only by this hy- 
pothesis that we can account for the effect of a shooting star during an 
aurora, in lighting up certain parts of the vaults of heaven not previously 
illuminated (see Humboldt’s “Cosmos” on Aerolites). It thus appears 
that the subtle medium which fills space is not to be regarded as a mere im- 
pediment to planetary motion, but as a useful agent in the course of Nature’s 
operations, and as indispensable to our existence as the appendages of air 
and water which roll around our planet. 


N THE COLOR OF SALTS IN SOLUTION, EACH CONSTITUENT OF 
WHICH IS COLORED. 


The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, read before 
the British Association, at its last meeting by Dr. Gladstone. 

It is a general law that “ all the compounds of a particular base, or acid, 
when in aqueous solution, absorb the same rays of light;” hence it may be 
deduced that when a colored base and a colored acid combine, the resulting 
salt will transmit only those rays which are not absorbed by either constitu- 
ent,—or, in other words, only those rays which are transmitted by both. 
This was proved to be actually the case by a prismatic examination of com- 
pounds of chromic, permanganic, and carbazotic acids with copper, iron, nickel, 
uranium, and chromium. Though the compounds of chlorine, bromine, 
and iodine with hydrogen and most metals are colorless, the compounds of 
these halogens with gold, platinum, and palladium exhibit an absorption of 
light due to the halogen as well as that due to the metal. The same is true 
in respect to chlorides, bromides, and iodides of copper, iron, nickel, and 
cobalt, when these salts are dissolved in a minimum of water; but when 
more water is added the color changes, and the absorption due to the halo- 
gen no longer exists. In one or two of the cases examined a slight varia- 
tion from the general law occurred ; and ferrocyanide of iron forms a com- 
plete exception. The double chloride of platinum and copper shows the 
absorbent effect of all these constituents. 


ON THE RELATIONS OF GOLD TO LIGHT. 


During the year 1856, a paper on the relations of gold to light, was read 
before the Royal Institution, London, by Prof. Faraday. The abstract of 


19 


pe 


218 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the investigations then announced was published in the Annual of Scientific 
Discovery for 1857, pp. 272, 273, 274. Since, another communication has 
been made by Prof. Faraday, on the same subject, in which he states that 
having since obtained some perfectly pure gold leaf, he has been enabled to 
fully verify his former observations. ‘This was the more important in re- 
gard to the effect of heat in taking away the green color of the transmitted 
light, and destroying, to a large extent, the power of reflexion. The tem- 
perature of boiling oil, if continued long enough, is sufficient for this effect ; 
but a higher temperature (far short of fusion) produces it more rapidly. 
Whether it is the result of a mere breaking up by refraction of a corrugated 
fiim, or an allotropic change, is uncertain. Pressure restores the green color; 
but it also has the like effect upon films obtained by other processes than 
beating. Corresponding results are produced with other metals. As before 
stated, films of gold may be obtained on a weak solution of the metal, by 
bringing an atmosphere containing vapors of phosphorus into contact with 
it. They are produced, also, when small particles of phosphorus are placed 
floating on such a solution; and then, as a film differing in thickness is 
formed, the concentric rings due to Newton’s thin plates are produced. 
These films transmit light of various colors. When heated they become 
amethystine or ruby; and then when pressed, become green, just as heated 
gold leaf. This effect of pressure is characteristic of metallic gold, whether 
it is-in leaf, or film, or dust. Gold wire, separated into very fine particles 
by the electric deflagration, produces a deposit on glass, which, being exam- 
ined, either chemically or physically, proves to be pure metallic gold. This 
deposit transmits various colored rays: some parts are gray, others green, 
or amethystine, or evena bright ruby. In order to remove any possibility 
of a compound of gold, as an oxide, being present, the deflagrations were 
made upon topaz, mica, and rock crystal, as well as glass, and also in atmos- 
pheres of carbonic acid and of hydrogen. Still, the results were the same, 
and ruby gold appeared in one case as much as inanother. Being heated, 
all parts of the deposit became of an amethystine or ruby color; and by 
pressure, these parts could be changed so as to transmit the greenray. ‘The 
production of fluids, consisting of very finely divided particles of gold dif- 
fused through water, was spoken of before. ‘These fluids may be of vari- 
ous colors by transmitted light from ruby to blue; the effects being produced 
only by diffused particles of metallic gold. If a drop of solution of phos- 
phorus in bisulphide of carbon be put into a bottle containing a quart or 
more of very weak solution of goid, and the whole be agitated, the change 
is brought about sooner than by the process formerly described ; or if a so- 
lution of phosphorus in ether be employed, very quickly indeed ; so that a 
few hours’ standing completes the action. All the preparations have the 
same qualities as those before described. The differently colored fluids may 
have the colored particles partially removed by filtration; and so long as 
the particles are kept by the filter from aggregation, they preserve their ruby 
or other color unchanged, even though salt be present. If fine isinglass be 
soaked in water, then warmed to melt it, and one of these rich fluids be 
added, with agitation, a ruby jelly fluid wiil be obtained, which, when suffi- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 219 


ciently concentrated and cold, supplics a tremulous jelly; and this, when 
dried, yields a hard ruby gelatine, which being soaked in water, becomes trem- 
ulous again, and by heat and more water yields a ruby fluid. The dry 
hard ruby jelly is perfectly analogous to the well-known ruby glass, though 
often finer in color; and both owe the color to particles of metallic gold. 
Animal membranes may, in like manner, have ruby particles diffused through 
them, and then are perfectly analogous in their action on light to the gold 
ruby glass, and from the same cause. When a leaf of beaten gold is held ob- 
liquely across a ray of common light, it polarizes a portion of it; and the 
light transmitted is polarized in the same direction as that transmitted by a 
bundle of thin plates of glass ; the effect is produced by the heated leaf as 
well as by the green leaf, and does not appear to be due to any condition 
brought on by the heating or to internal structure. When a polarized ray is 
employed, and the inclined leaf held across it, the ray is affected, and a part 
passes the analyzer, provided the gold film is inclined in a plane forming an 
angle of 45° with the plane of polarization. Like effects are produced by 
the films of gold produced from solution and phosphorus, and also by the 
deposited dust of gold due to the electric discharge. The same effects are 
produced by the other deflagrated metals so long as the dusty films are in 
the metallic state. As these finer preparations could be held in place only 
on glass or some such substance, and as glass itself had an effect, it was 
necessary to find a medium in which the power of the glass was nothing; 
and this was obtained in the bisulphide of carbon. Here the effect of gold 
upon the ray of light which was unaffected by the glass supporting it was 
rendered very manifest, not only to a single observer, but also to a large 
audience. ‘The object of these investigations was to ascertain the varied 
powers of a substance acting upon light, when its particles were extremely 
divided, to the exclusion of every other change of constitution. It was 
hoped that some of the very important differences in the action upon the 
rays might in this way be referred to the relation in size or in number of the 
vibrations of the light and the particles of the body, and also to the distance 
of the latter from each other; and as many of the effects are novel in this 
point of view, it is hoped that they will be of service to the physical phi- 
losopher. 

As to the quantity of gold in the different films or solutions, it can at 
present only be said that it is very small. Suppose that a leaf of gold, 
which weighs about 0°2 of a grain, and covers a superficies of nearly ten 
square inches, were diffused through a column having that base, and 2-7 
inches in heieht, it would give a ruby fluid equal in depth of tint to a good 
red rose, the volume of gold present being about the one five hundred thou- 
sandth part of the volume of the fluid ; another result gave 0°01 of a grain 
of gold in a cubic inch of fluid. These fine diffused particles have not as 
yet been distinguished by any microscopic power applied to them. 


PHOTOHELIOGRAPH. 


Under the auspices of the Royal Society, G. B., a photographic apparatus 
p J Nes peel Sra] Pi 
for registering daily the position of the spots upon the sun’s disc, as sug- 


220 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


gested by Sir John Herschel,* has recently been constructed and placed in 
the observatory at Kew. The object-glass of this instrument is three and 
four-tenth inches aperture, and fifty inches focal length; it is not corrected 
for achromatism in the ordinary manner, but so as to producd a coincidence 
of the visual and photogenic foci. The secondary objectives for magnifying 
the image produced by the principal object-glass are of the Huyghenian 
form. ‘They are three in number, producing respectively images of the sun, 
three, four and eight inches in diameter. Between the two lenses of each 
of these secondary object-glasses, is inserted a diaphragm plate, carrying the 
fixed micrometer wires, which are of platinum ; these wires are four in num- 
ber, two at right angles to the other two. One of the wires of each pair is 
in such a position that they may both be made tangential to the sun’s image, 
while the other two cross at a point situated near the sun’s centre. By 
means of these wires, the distance in arc between each pair having been 
once for all ascertained astronomically for each secondary object-glass, it will 
be easy to determine all the data necessary for ascertaining the relative mag- 
nitudes and positions of the sun’s spots. ‘These micrometer wires are under 
the influence of springs, so as to preserve a tension upon them when ex- 
panded by the sun’s heat, and thus to keep them straight. The principal 
and secondary object-glasses are not mounted in an ordinary cylindrical 
tube, but in a pyramidal trunk square in section, five inches in the side at 
the upper end, which carries the principal object-glass, and twelve inches in 
the side at the lower end, which carries the photographic plate-holder and 
the usual ground glass screen for focusing. ‘This trunk is firmly supported 
by a declination axis of hard gun metal two and ahalf inches in diameter ; 
it is furnished with a declination circle ten inches in diameter, reading to one 
minute of arc, and has a clamp and screw motion for fine adjustment in 
declination. 

The polar axis is driven by a clock driver, which answers perfectly, and is 
easy of regulation to the greatest nicety, so that the sun’s limb remains for 
a long period in contact with the tangential wires. 

The polar axis of the telescope is carried by a dial-plate, which fits on the 
top of a hollow column of cast iron, the section of which is a parallelogram. 
This column is securely fastened to the stone foundation. The instrument 
is mounted within the rotating dome of the Kew Observatory. 

The telescope and its mechanical appliances may be said to be perfect so 
far as they go, but experience will undoubtedly suggest several minor alter- 
ations and additions before the telescope is brought practically to work. 
The photographing of such minute objects as the sun’s spots will require 
at all times the utmost skill and care of an accomplished photographer, even 
when the telescope has been fairly started. The difficulties yet to be mas- 
tered must occupy some considerable time. The first attempts have been 
confined to the production of negative photographs, but in consequence of 
the imperfections always existing in the collodion film, it has been deemed 
advisable to make attempts to produce positive pictures, and recourse may 
ultimately have to be made to the daguerreotype process. 


*See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1855, p. 2038. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. ya 


IMPROVEMENTS IN LENSES AND REFLECTORS. 


It is well known that Buffon, desirous of repeating the experiment of 
Archimedes, with a burning glass, endeavored to construct a lens of water, 
of large diameter. ‘T'wo plates of glass of great thickness were curved by 
the heat of a concave metallic plate, worked and polished, and then fitted 
together with a border of metal and filled with distilled water. Buffon thus 
made a lens one meter in diameter and of great power. But he pursued it 
no further, because of the difficulty of the work, and the enormous expense 
of polishing the rough surface of the glass, the material being also rendered 
brittle by the second heating. Since then in England, and more lately in 
France, there have been attempts to blow a glass lens in a mould of metal 
made in two halves. But the result has been imperfect, the glass uneven, 
giving no distinct focus. 

There has however been a recent improvement by Messieurs Lemolt and 
Robert, which is of great importance. It consists in using for constructing 
the lenses, a circular plate of glass, and a section from a sphere blown with 
great care, applying this to the plate and closing them together in a circle 
of metal, and putting water between, or some other transparent liquid. It 
forms a plano-convex lens, which may be economically made, and has the 
purity and perfection nearly, without the cost, of lenses of massive glass. 
Lemolt and Robert have also made improvements in reflectors, employing 
sections of glass more or less concave, cut from a sphere, in the same way 
as above mentioned, and having on the convex part a rich plating of silver 
from electric deposition. ‘These reflectors can be cheaply made and require 
little care. Lenses and reflectors of this kind have been used on the rail- 
roads of Paris. By combining the two, a new kind of lamp has been con- 
structed, giving results of unexpected brilliancy, which have already been 
brought into use on board ships and at the entrances of ports as well as on 
rail-roads. A water lens thirty-eight centimeters will send its rays to a dis- 
tance of twenty kilometers along a railway, producing the effect of a light- 
house light of the second order. — Silliman’s Journal. 


SIMPLE METHOD OF DETERMINING THE FOCAL LENGTH OF SMALL 
CONVEX LENSES. 

The following is a communication recently made to the Royal (G. B.) 
Astrominical Society, by the Rev. T. W. Webb. 

The determination of the focal length of a small convex lens is a matter 
of considerable difficulty, at least in the hands of an amateur. Not only is 
the process of direct measurement a delicate and somewhat troublesome one, 
but the result is not satisfactory, as it is complicated with uncertainties aris- 
ing from the amount of spherical aberration, which with a large angle of 
aperture may have a considerable effect; from the thickness of the lens; 
and from the difference of the measure from the centre and from the margin 
of the posterior surface. These difficulties, it is true, are avoided, as to the 
usual object of such measurements, by the employment of the dynameter, or 

es i 


222 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


any equivalent contrivance by which the focal image is measured instead of 
the focal length; but, as these optical means are not always at hand, it may 
perhaps be of some use to explain a mode of measurement practised by my- 
self very successfully more than twenty years ago. The requisite apparatus, 
if it can be so termed, will be described in its original simplicity ; a little in- 
genuity would easily improve it: but even in its first rude trial it was found 
adequate to its object. Three pieces of cork are perforated by a knitting 
needle, so as to slide along it. To the centre one is attached, in a vertical 
position, and with its axis parallel to the knitting-needle, the lens to be meas- 
ured ; in each of the others is inserted a piece of a sewing-needle, with the 
point uppermost, and having its length so regulated that a line joining these 
points would pass, as nearly as may be, through the centre of the lens. The 
cork discs carrying these needles are then moved backwards and forwards, 
till the inverted image of the one needle’s point, formed by rays passing 
through the lens, is seen coincident and equally distinct with the other 
needie’s point, when both are viewed at once through a tolerably strong 
magnifier applied to the eye, and directed towards the lens. Then, if the 
needle-points are sensibly equidistant on each side of the lens, a condition 
which can be quite sufficiently attained in the course of a few trials, it is evi- 
dent that they occupy the conjugate foci, and the distance between them be- 
ing carefully measured with compasses, will be, as a very simple proposition 
in optics will show, four times the amount of the focal length of the lens for 
parallel rays. The apparent defect of this method is the uncertainty whether 
the points, when the image of one is formed close to the other, are equidis- 
tant from the lens, the setting of which, or its form, unless equally convex 
on each side, may render actual measurement unsatisfactory. 


ON A TELESCOPE SPECULUM OF SILVERED GLASS. 


The following communication was presented to the British Association, 
Dublin, by M. Leon Foucault: The astronomical refractor compared with 
the reflecting telescope of the same dimensions, has always had the advant- 
age of giving more light; the pencil of rays which fall on the object-glass pass 
through it for the most part, and are employed almost entirely in the forma- 
tion of the image at the focus ; while on the metal mirror a part only of the 
light is reflected in a converging pencil, which loses still more by a second re- 
flection being brought back towards the observer. However, as the reflecting 
telescope is essentially free from aberration of yrefragability, as the purity of 
its images depends only on the perfection of a single surface, as with regard 
to focal length it possesses a greater diameter than the refracting telescope, 
and thus partly regains the light wasted by reflexions — some observers con- 
tinue to give it the preference, chiefly in England, over the refracting teles- 
cope for the examination of celestial objects. It is certain that at this mo- 
ment, and despite the multiplied improvements in the manufacture of large 
glasses, the most powerful instrument directed towards the heavens is a teles- 
cope with a metal speculum. The telescope of Lord Rosse is six feet Eng- 
lish in diameter, and its focal distance is fifty-five feet. Possibly the reflect- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. DES 


ing instruments would have gained the superiority could the metal take 
_ as durable a polish — could it be as well worked as the glass, and were it 
not heavier. Placing thus in parallelism the two sorts of instruments, and 
discussing their respective qualities and defects, I finished by conceiving that 
the telescope with a glass would possess every advantage, if the mirror be- 
ing once shaped and polished we could communicate to it the metallic bril- 
liancy, in order to obtain from it images as luminous as those of the refract- 
ing telescopes. This thought, which at first appeared a fiction of imagina- 
tion, was soon converted into a satisfactory reality. The glass being cut 
by an experienced optician, and thoroughly polished, is ready to be covered 
by Drayton’s process with a very thin uniform coating of silver. This 
metallic coating, which when taken out of the bath in which it is formed is 
dull and dark, is easily brightened by rubbing with a skim lightly tinged 
with oxide of iron, and acquires in a short time a very brilliant lustre. By 
this operation the surface of the glass is wholly of metal, and becomes 
vividly reflective, not exhibiting under severest tests the slightest alteration 
inform. To procure a disc of glass with concave surface perfectly finished, 
I applied to Mr. Secretan, who had the kindness to provide for me a clever 
workman. On the other hand, to be able to obtain a deposit of silver, I had 
recourse to the owners of the English patent, M. Power and M. Robert, who 
furnished me with the silvery solution, giving at the same time the fullest 
instructions as to how I might soonest succeed. My mirror being silvered, 
and having acquired a polish of steel, I formed a telescope of it ef ten cen- 
timétres diameter and fifty centimetres focal length. This little instrument 
supports well the eye-glass, which magnifies 200 times, and compared with 
the reflecting telescope of one métre, gives a very sensibly superior effect. 
Wishing to learn the proportion of light usefully reflected by the layer of 
silver deposited on the glass, and afterwards polished, or, at least, to com- 
pare the intensity of a pencil of rays reflected by a surface thus prepared 
with that of one transmitted by an equal surface from the object-glass of a 
refracting telescope, I accomplished the matter without difficulty by means 
of a photometer with divisions, which I had employed on another occasion. 
The result of this operation insures a decided advantage to the new teles- 
cope. The pencil of rays reflected on the silvered glass is equal to 90 per 
cent. of those transmitted through an object-glass of four partial reflections ; 
so that the new instrument avails itself of the overplus of light, which, on 
account of the greater diameter of the mirror, concurs efficiently to the for- 
mation of the focal image. Diameters equal, the telescope with glass is by 
one-half shorter than the other instrument, — with equal lengths, it bears a 
double diameter, and collects three and a half times more light. Considered 
in another point of view, the new combination is distinguished in this, that 
it produces all its effect without the concurrence of those numerous con- 
ditions required to obtain a certain degree of perfection in any instrument, 
whether reflecting or refracting telescope. The reflecting telescope, above 
all, requires that the constructor of it, at one and the same time, pay partic- 
ular attention to the homogeneity of the two sorts of glass which form the 
object-glass, their refracting and dispersive powers, the combination of 


224 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


curves, the centerage and the execution of four spherical surfaces. In the 
new telescope, on the contrary, the glass, serving not as a middle refractor, 
but only to support a very thin layer of metal, the homogeneity of the mass 
is by no means required, and the most ordinary glass of sufficient thickness 
worked with care, affords a concave surface, which when silvered and pol- 
ished furnishes of itself and by reflexion excellent images. There is one 
strong objection to the metal mirrors, — it is, that they become oxidized in 
time, and are tarnished by contact with the air. Eight months I have sil- 
vered mirrors, which have not yet undergone any sensible alteration. Will 
they preserve this state of perfection a still longer time? The experiment 
has not yet been sufficiently prolonged to decide one way or the other; but 
even should the lustre of the mirror become weaker, there is no difficulty in 
recurring to the same means for re-establishing it, by which it had been at 
first obtained. In fine, should the depth of the silver be altered, the opera- 
tion of depositing it is so easy and prompt, that it can easily be repeated. 
To resume, the new instrument compared with the refracting telescopes 
gives, at much less cost, more light, more distinctness, and is free, like the 
reflecting telescope, from all aberration of refrangibility. 

Professor Stoney asked what the material of the polisher used by M. 
Foucault was, and gave various reasons for doubting that the method pro- 
posed by the author would ever produce a speculum the defining power of 
which could approach to that of specula ground and polished by the methods 
devised and executed by Lord Rosse. — Mr. Grubb stated, that if the one 
three thousandth of an inch spoken of by M. Foucault was meant to convey 
an idea that that dimension bore any relation to the quantity removed in the 
process of polishing, his own experience would enable him confidently to 
deny its power of producing a speculum of accurate defining power, as in 
the polishing process thicknesses of a forty and fifty thousandth part of an 
inch became important thicknesses. — The President, Dr. Robinson, said, 
that when M. Foucault had visited Lord Rosse, as he was about to do, and 
had seen the apparatus which he used for grinding and polishing even mon- 
ster specula, he would not, he felt well assured, consider these operations on 
metals so formidable as they now appeared to him; he would find that to 
polish the great speculum of six feet diameter, in which operation it was 
brought to the true figure for best definition, occupied only a matter of 
about five hours from the time it was placed upon the machine. 


ON THE CENTERING THE LENSES OF COMPOUND OBJECT-GLASSES 
OF MICROSCOPES. 

The following is a report of a communication made by Sir David Brew- 
ster to the British Association at its last meeting at Dublin, on the above 
subject. 

In studying the subject of diffraction, as seen through the microscope, I 
was led to believe that in the best object-glasses now made, the axes of the 
individual lenses were now coincident. I have no means or learning by 
what process the optician centres his lenses, and groups of lenses, but it 
must be a very delicate one, when we consider the small size of the lenses 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 225 


and the great depth of their curves; and I have no doubt that, however im- 
perfect, it is one which is anxiously and carefully applied. You are, no 
doubt, acquainted with Dr. Wollaston’s interesting paper ‘‘ On the Concen- 
tric Adjustment of a Triple Object-Glass,” (Phil. Trans., 1822, p. 32) 45 
inches in focal length, executed by the celebrated John Dollond, and regard- 
ed as one of his best works. By a process which he has described, Dr. 
Wollaston found that it was very imperfectly centered; and, contrary to 
the advice of his friends, he separated the lenses, and by applying two pairs 
of adjusting screws to the edges of each lens, he placed their axes in the 
same line, and, to use his own words, “he restored his object-glass to such 
correct performance” that it was “capable or either separating very small 
and nearly equal stars, as those of forty-four Gootis and o Corone, or of ex- 
hibiting the minute secondaries of B Orionis and twenty-four Aguile, with as 
much distinctness as the state of the air would admit.’ Dr. Wollaston 
adds, ‘that the actual limit to its powers cannot be fully ascertainted, ex- 
cepting under such favorable conditions of the atmosphere as do but rarely 
occur.” If such a distinguished artist as Dollond failed in centering a 
group of three lenses, about four inches in diameter, and with comparatively 
flat curves, how much more difficult must it be to center the six minute 
lenses of an achromatic object glass one-eighth or one-twelfth of an inch 
in focal length: and if such results were obtained by the correction of his 
error, how superior must the microscope be in which the concentric adjust- 
ment of its lenses is effected? While opticians, indeed, confine themselves 
to the use of only two kinds of glass, of different refractive and dispersive 
powers, we can hardly expect much improvement in the microscope, unless 
by the substitution of achromatic lenses in the eye-piece, and by an infalli- 
ble method of centering each lens, and each group of lenses in the instrument. 
The successful application of two pairs of adjusting screws to each of six 
lenses, and also to those of the eye-piece, may be a difficult task, but it is 
not beyond the powers of mechanism. It is very obvious that Dr. Wallas- 
ton’s method of examining the centering of a triple object-glass is wholly in- 
applicable to the object-glass of a microscope. In submitting to examina- 
tion an object-glass made by a distinguished optician, it was necessary to 
use a microscopic picture of the sun, and to examine the position of its 
images as reflected from the various surfaces of the lenses by means of a 
microscope, the object-glass of which was brought in contact with the outer 
lens of the object-glass to be examined. By separating the two object- 
glasses, I observed in succession a series of twenty-four images appearing 
and disappearing in succession. ‘These images occupied different parts of 
the field, and I could not succeed by the most careful adjustment of the ep- 
paratus employed in placing them in the same axis. These images had 
various sizes, and were in various states cf color, some highly colored, and 
some purely white. They had also various sizes, many with fine planetary 
dises, of different magnitudes, some like the smallest fixed stars which it 
was difficult to descry, and almost all of them exhibiting the most beautifal 
concentric diffracted rings when put out of focus. Two or three images 
often appeared in the same part of the field, in immediate succession, while 


Bee ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


similar pairs arose at a distance from each other. Although I often suc- 
ceeded in uniting two or more of these images, yet the effect of this was to 
place others at a greater distance ; and I had no hesitation in coming to the 
conclusion, that the lenses of the object-glass which produced these images 
were imperfectly centered. Having had occasion to see at the Paris Exposi- 
tion, and more recently at Florence, the superior performance of Professor 
Amici’s microscopes, I cannot omit the present opportunity of urging phi- 
losophers and opticians, as I have often done, to correct the colors of the 
secondary spectrum by fluids or solids of different dispersive powers. 
Professor Amici has done this. In his object-glasses, numbers one and two, 
of low powers, he employs four diiferent refractive and dispersive substances. 
In his powers numbers three, four and five, he employs five such substances ; 
and in his highest power, number six, he employs six. In recommending, 
as I have often had occasion to do, the employment of diamond and other 
gems in the construction of compound as well as simple microscopes, I 
have been met with the objection that they are too expensive for such a pur- 
pose, and they certainly are for instruments intended merely to instruct and 
amuse; but if we desire to make great discoveries, to unfold secrets yet hid 
in the cells of plants and animals, we must not grudge even a diamond to 
reveal them. If Mr. Cooper and Sir James South have given a couple of 
thousand pounds for a refracting telescope, in order to study what have been 
mis-called ‘“‘dots” and “lumps” of light on the sky; and if Lord Rosse 
has expended far greater sums on a reflecting telescope for analyzing what 
has been called “sparks of mud and vapor” encumbering the azure purity 
of the heavens, why should not other philosophers open their purse, if they 
have one, and other noblemen sacrifice some of their household jewels to_ 
resolve the microscopic structures of our own rcal world ; — to unrayel mys- 
teries most interesting to man; and disclose secrets which the Almighty 
must have intended that we should know ? 


ON THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING. 


The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject recently pre- 
sented to the Royal Society, Eng., by Andrés Poey, director of the obserya- 
tory at Havana. The first, though not the earliest authentic mention of this 
singular phenomenon was made by Benjamin Franklin, in 1786, who fre- 
quently stated that about twenty years previous a man who was standing 
opposite a tree that had just been struck by a thunderbolt, had on his breast 
an exact representation of that tree. A similar case is mentioned by the 
* Journal of Commerce,”’ New York, on the 26th of August, 1853. “A 
little girl was standing at a window, before which was a young maple tree; 
after a brilliant flash of lightning, a complete image of the tree was found 
imprinted on her body. This is not the first instance of the kind.” M. 
Raspail, in 1855, has also mentioned another instance. He says that a boy 
having climbed a tree for the purpose of robbing a bird’s nest, the tree was 
struck, and the boy thrown upon the ground; on his breast the image of the 
tree, with the bird and nest on one of its branches, appeared very plainly. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. . 227 


M. Olioli, a very learned Italian, brought before the Scientific Congress at 
Naples the following four cases of impressions made by lightning. In Sep- 
tember, 1825, lightning struck the foremast of the brigantine St. Buon Circo, 
in the bay of Arniro; a sailor sitting under the mast was struck dead, and 
on his back was found an impression of a horseshoe, similar even in size to 
that fixed at the mast head. On another occasion, a sailor standing in a 
similar position, had on the left of his breast the impression of a number 
44, with a dot between the two figures, being in all respects the same as a 
number 44 that was at the extremity of one of the masts. On the 9th of 
October, 1836, a young man was found struck by lightning. He had ona 
girdle, with some gold coins in it; these were imprinted on his skin in the 
same manner they were placed in the girdle; thus a series of circles with one 
point of contact was plainly visible. The fourth case happened in 1847. 
Mrs. Morosa, an Italian lady of Lugano, was sitting near a window during 
a thunder-storm, and perceived the commotion, but felt no injury; but a 
flower which happened to be in the path of the clectrie current was perfectly 
re-produced on her leg, and there it remained permanently. M. Poey also 
mentions the following instance, which came under his personal observation 
in Cuba:—On the 24th of July, 1852, a poplar tree in a coffee plantation 
being struck by lightning, on one of the large dry leaves was found an ex- 
act representation of some pine trees that lay at the distance of 339 metres 
(three hundred and sixty-seven yards, nine inches). As to the theoretical 
explanation of lightning impressions, Mr. Poey thinks that they are produced 
in the same manner as the electric images obtained by Moser, Riess, Karster, 
Grove, Fox Talbot, and others, either by statical or dynamical electricity of 
different intensities. The fact that impressions are made through garments 
is easily accounted for when we remember that their rough texture does not 
prevent the lichtning passing through them, with the impression it has re- 
ceived. To corroborate this view, Mr. Poey mentioned an instance of light- 
ning falling down a chimney, and passing into a trunk, in which was found 
an inch depth of soot, which must have passed through the wood itself. 


PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FIXED STARS. 


At a recent meeting of the American Academy, Boston, Mr. G. P. Bond 
communicated the results of an examination of the photographs of the star 
Mizar (¢ Ursa Majoris, with its companion, and the neighboring star Alcor ;) 
specimens of which were exhibited. 

Daguerreotype images of the star Vega (a Lyre) were obtained at the 
Observatory of Harvard College by the well known artist, Mr. J. A. Whipple 
of Boston, on the 17th of July, 1850, and subsequently impressions were 
taken from the double star, Castor, exhibiting an elongated disc, but no dis- 
tinct separation of its two components. These were the first, and, till very 
recently, the only known instances, of the application of photography to the 
delineation of the fixed stars. 

A serious difficulty was interposed to further progress by the want of suit- 
able apparatus for communicating uniform sidereal motion to the telescope. 


228 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


This has now been supplied by replacing the original Munich clock of the 
great equatorial of the Observatory by a new one, on the principle of the 
spring governor, invented by the Messrs. Bond. This clock, which was 
made by Messrs. George and Alvan Clark of East Cambridge, carries the 
telescope with admirable evenness and regularity of motion. 

Immediately upon its completion, at the invitation of the Director of the 
Observatory, Messrs. Whipple and Black commenced a new series of ex- 
periments, and have succeeded in transferring to the plate, by the collodion 
process, images of the fixed stars to the fifth magnitude, inclusive, with sin- 
gular and unexpected precision. 

The most remarkable instances of their success are the simultaneous im- 
pressions of the group of stars composed of Mizar of the second magnitude, 
its companion of the fourth, and Alcor of the fifth magnitude. 

Mr. Bond then presented a series of measurements of the angular distance 
of the companion from Mizar, taken from the plates with a micrometer 
microscope. ‘These measurements compared, with those given by Struve, 
as the result of observation and calculation, showed the probable error of a 
single photographic distance to be + 0”. 12, or quite as small as that 
attributed by Struve to a single direct measurement. The former method 
has thus in its first efforts attained the limit of accuracy beyond which it is 
not to be expected that the latter can ever be sensibly advanced. But the 
photographic process holds out a much better promise. 

The two principal sources of error by which it is affected are spots on the 
glass plate, or impurities in the coating in the neighborhood of the images, 
and slight departures from symmetry in their form, as yet noticed only 
when the plate has been exposed too long to the action of the light. The 
latter has been the case with most of the plates from which the ‘above 
measurements have been taken, and they may in consequence be slightly 
affected. It is certainly to be anticipated, that, by the exercise of more 
care in regulating the time of exposure, the symmetry of the images can be 
secured. A microscopic examination will in most cases serve to distinguish 
accidental spots in the coating, or on the glass, from the molecules, which, 
by their aggregation, show the action of light. 

The real difficulty, perhaps insurmountable, which now prevents a most 
extensive application of photography to astronomy, is the deficient sensi- 
tiveness of the processes in use. Unless photographs of stars as low, at 
least, as the eighth magnitude can be obtained, its use must be restricted to 
comparatively few double stars. Should, however, this impediment be 
overcome, and photographic impressions be obtained from stars between 
the sixth and eleventh magnitudes, as has already been done for those be- 
tween the first and the fifth, the extension given to our present means of ob- 
servation would be an advance in the science of stellar astronomy of which 
it would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the importance. 


PHOTOGRAPHS FOR WOOD ENGRAVING. 


By a process invented by La Clemand, of Paris, the wood is first placed 
with its surface on a solution of alum, and dried; it then receives with a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 229 


soft brush, a coating composed of animal soap, gelatine, and alum, upon all 
its faces ; when the coating is dry, the surface which is to receive the picture 
is placed for some minutes in a solution of muriate of ammonia (sal-ammo- 
niac), then dried; then on a bath of nitrate of silver of twenty per cent., 
and then dried. A cliché upon glass or paper is then applied on the 
wood by means of a peculiar frame, permitting the process of the reproduc- 
tion to be watched. When satisfactory, the picture is fixed by means of a 
- saturated bath of hyposulphite of soda. A few minutes is enough; it is 
then washed for only five minutes. The first coating preserves the wood 
from moisture; and eight months of experience have proved to the inventor 
that the employment of alum and a hyposulphite, in place of destroying the 
wood, gives it a great strength favorable to the engraving. — Comptes Rendus, 
October, 1857. 

Another process, recently patented by R. Rice, of Worcester, Mass., and 
which is now practically applied, consists in preparing the wooden blocks 
first of all with a thin solution of asphaltum or bitumen, ether and lamp- 
black, rubbed into the pores of the wood. This ethereal solution of asphalt 
is put on the surface of the block with a rag, brush or sponge, and then some 
fine lampblack is also rubbed in dry; the surface of the block is afterwards 
polished on a cushion, when it acquires a smooth, jet black, glossy appear- 
ance. After this, it is treated by the common photographic process ; 
namely, coated with collodion rendered sensitive by nitrate of silver, then 
put into the camera, the picture taken, then fixed and dried in the usual 
manner. 


ON PHOTO-GALVANOGRAPHY, OR ENGRAVING BY LIGHT AND 
ELECTRICITY. 


The following is a detailed description, copied from the specification of 
the patent, of the very remarkable method of engraving, by the conwined 
process of photography and electricity, invented by M. Pretsch, late manager 
of the imperial printing office at Vienna. A brief notice of this invention 
was given in the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1857, page 211. 

My invention, says M. Pretsch, consists in adapting the photographic 
process to the purpose of obtaining a raised or sunk design, on a glass or 
other suitable plate covered with glutinous substances, mixed with photo- 
graphic materials, which design can then be copied by the electrotype pro- 
cess, so as to procure plates suitable for printing purposes. The operator 
first coats a glass plate with a gelatinous or glutinous solution, suitably pre- 
pared with chemical ingredients, sensitive to light, as follows :— One part 
of clear glue is soaked in about ten parts of distiiled water, but the quantity 
of water depends upon the strength of the glue, and the state of the atmos- 
phere. Meanwhile, there are prepared three different solutions, viz: a very 
strong solution of bichromate of potash, a solution of nitrate of silver, and 
a weak solution of iodide of potassium. The glue is dissolved by heat, and 
a small quantity of it is added to each of the two solutions of silver and 
iodide. The remaining greater portion of the glue is kept warm, the solu- 
tion of bichromate of potash added, and well mixed. After which the small 


20 


230 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


portion of the glue with silver is added, and also mixed well, and allowed 
about ten minutes’ time for combining. Finally, the small portion of th 
glue with the iodide is added, the whole mixture strained, and it is then 
ready to be poured on the plates of glass or other suitable material. When 
dry, the coated plate is ready for exposure. The photographic picture, the 
drawing, print, or other subject to be copied, being laid on the prepared 
coated surface, they are to be placed together in a photographic copying 
frame, and exposed to the influence of the light. After a sufficient expo- 
sure, which is exceedingly variable, according to the intensity of the light, 
the plate is taken out from the copying frame, when it will be found to ex- 
hibit a faint picture on the smooth surface of the sensitive coating. It is 
then washed with water, or a solution of borax, or carbonate of soda, as 
may be necessary. The whole image comes out in relief with all its details, 
and, when properly done, with all its brilliancy. 

If the original is a photograph, chalk, sepia, or Indian ink drawing, the 
copy represents the different tints in grains ; if in lines, the copy will repro- 
duce the lines. 

When sufficiently developed, it must be washed with spirits of wine. 
The surplus moisture is removed, and the plate is covered with a mixture 
of copal varnish, diluted with spirits of turpentine. After some time, the 
superfluous varnish must be removed by oil of turpentine, and the plate 
treated again, or immersed in a very weak solution of tannin or other 
astringent liquid. During this part of the process the plate must be care- 
fully watched, and removed as soon as the picture or design is considered 
sufficiently raised; it is then washed in water and dried. In this state the 
piate is ready to be copied. This may be effected by the customary methods 
of rendering the coating conducting, and placing it in the electrotype appa- 
ratus, producing an intaglio copper plate; or, if first moulded, the intaglio 
moul@ furnishes the means of obtaining a relievo plate by electro-deposition 
in a similar way. To produce a sunk design on the prepared plates, I pro- 
ceed as before, but after washing with the spirits of wine, the plate must be 
dried on a warm place, and in due time the picture or design will appear 
sunk like an engraved plate. The printing plates are produced as before 
described. 

If an intaglio plate is made, it may be printed from, at the common cop- 
per-plate printing press; on the other hand, the relicvo plate may either 
serve as the matrix for producing an intaglio printing plate, or it may be 
itseif employed in “surface” printing, like a wood-cut. In the latter case, 
the narrow lines of the impression being sufficiently raised, the broad white 
spaces must be cut out on the printing plate, or built up in the matrix. 
The common well known stereotype process also affords another means of 
producing the necessary plate. 


PHOTOGRAPHS IN FACTITIOUS IVORY. 


An invention by Mr. J. E. Mayall, the well-known London photographer, 
relates to the use of artificial ivory for receiving photographic pictures in- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 231 


stead of glass or paper. This artificial material, which possesses all the 
properties and beautiful finish of ivory, and allows of any subsequent tinting 
of the image, and the obtainment of superior softness in the semitints, is 
what is known in France as Pinson’s artificial ivory, consisting of a com- 
pound of gelatine and alumina. ‘This material is prepared in the form of 
slabs, for the photographer’s use, in this way: The tablets or slabs are com- 
posed ef gelatine or glue in its natural state, and are immersed in a bath of 
alumina, which is held in solution by sulphuric or acetic acid; by this means 
a complete combination takes place between the alumina and the gelatine or 
glue. The tablets or slabs should remain in the bath a sufficient time to 
become thick enough for the purpose for which they are required, and to 
allow the alumina to entirely penetrate them and incorporate itself there- 
with ; they are then removed and allowed to dry or harden, when they may 
be dressed and polished by any of the ordinary and well-known processes 
for polishing ivory. 

Artificial ivory tablets, capable of bearing a fine polish, may also be made 
by mixing alumina directly with gelatine or glue; but this process is not so 
satisfactory as the process hereinbefore described, since the thickening pro- 
duced by the admixture of the alumina with the gelatine, renders the manu- 
facture of the sheets both difficult and expensive. 

Another composition of artificial ivory which is employed, consists of 
equal portions of bone or ivory dust, used either separately or combined, and 
albumen or gelatine, the whole being worked into a paste, and afterwards 
rolled out into sheets by suitable rolling or flattening mechanism. The 
sheets are then allowed to harden by exposure to the atmosphere, and are 
cut into slabs or tablets of the required size. But itis preferred to use two 
parts of fine powdered baryta, and one part of albumen, well worked 
together, and rolled out into slabs. The best plan hitherto discovered for 
working the materials together, is that commonly used in the manufacture 
of Parian marble ; this composition may also be used spread upon paper, if 
desired. These slabs or tablets are then carefully scraped, to give them a 
perfectly even surface. They are then washed with alcohol, to remove any 
impurity therefrom, and are prepared in the ordinary manner to receive posi- 
tive pictures. The pictures having been printed, the entire slab or tablet 
may be immersed for a few minutes in a weak solution of nitro-sulphuric 
acid or nitro-hydrochloric acid, for the purpose of rendering the picture more 
clear and brilliant. It is then fixed in the usual manner with hypo-sulphite 
of soda, and is washed, and then dried on a marble or other slab, or under 
pressure, to prevent it from warping. 


MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 


Hallotypes. — The following is a description of a patent recently granted 
to J. Bishop Hall, of New York City, for a peculiar method of treating pic- 
tures to produce a high degree of artistic and stereoscopic effect of objects, 
applicable to photographs, engravings, lithographs, and- similar pictures. 
The principle of the invention consists in combining two or more photo- 


232 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


graphic or other prints to form one picture. The pictures must be fac- 
similes or duplicate impressions, on semi-transparent material. If the in- 
vention is to be applied to photographs, let two copies be taken in the usual 
way, upon photographic paper. ‘The paper of the two pictures is then ren- 
dered somewhat transparent by the application of oil to it. Each picture is 
then to be cemented to a separate plate of glass by means of copal or other 
suitable transparent varnish, which must be previously applied to the glass, 
and partially dried — attained to the state called tacky. In applying the 
picture to the glass, care must be taken to press out all the air bubbles 
between the paper and the glass. Each picture is then allowed to become 
dry, or nearly so, when it will be well to scrape off the back carefully to 
remove any excrescences. After this is accomplished, one or more coats of 
copal or other suitable varnish is applied to the pictures; when these are 
dry, the two plates of glass are joined together in such a manner that the 
lines of the pictures coincide, in which position they are cemented or framed 
together, and excluded from the atmosphere. 

This is a description of the invention in its simplest form. Different 
effects may be produced when the front picture only is executed or attached 
to the plate of glass, and the second one placed some distance behind it so as 
to correspond with the other. Fine effects are produced by cutting out cer- 
tain parts of the back picture, thus allowing more light to pass to the front 
one. Colors may be applied to the back picture only or partially to the two, 
so that one color on the front picture may have a ground of another color. 
A back-ground of white light, or reflecting material, placed behind the pic- 
tures, such as enamelled white paper or a plate of enamelled white china, 
produces good effects. ‘The back-ground may also be silvered over to pro- 
duce effects according to the taste of the operator. 

Pictures produced according to this process are called [Hallotypes. They 
have an appearance something like wax figures, but on the whole are artis- 
tic and beautiful. — Scientific American. 

A method has recently been devised by Mr. Gill, of Liverpool, by 
which a stereoscopic photograph can be taken with a single lens, and with an 
ordinary camera. The observer looks into two mirrors jointed in the cen- 
tre, raised at each side so as to reflect two figures, and these being opposite 
the lens, two pictures are taken with one lens. But not only are the two 
pictures taken at one sitting, but they are non-inverted, which is also a great 
advantage obtained by the discovery. 

Transparent Enamel Photographs. — A novel and elegant adaptation of 
the photographic art has recently been brought out in London, and patented ~ 
under the name of ‘‘ Transparent Enamel Photographs.” 

Transparency is attained by fixing sheets of enamel upon glass surfaces, 
the two forming one plate. Upon one enamel face the picture is taken, the 
surface having been rendered sensitive by ordinary processes. ‘Then, when 
inverted, the glass becomes a ready-made protection for the pictures on one 
side, and another sheet of glass may be placed at the back or not, at plea- 
sure. The enamel surface will also take water-colors, and when thus 
painted, the effect is scarcely inferior to that of ivory. These colors are 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 233 


afterwards fixed by a peculiar process, which is one of the secrets of the in- 
vention. The advantages thus secured are transparency, capability of being 
perfectly cleansed, and, as it is confidently stated, durability of colors. The 
purity and delicacy of the result may be well imagined, and will doubtless 
bring the discovery into use for ornamental windows, lamp-shades, and all 
other transparencies. It will be valuable also for illuminations, and is quite 
available for stereoscopic views. ‘The ground of the picture is, of course, a 
pure and perferct white, and this, though in some respects an advantage and 
a desidcratum, has its drawbacks in producing, artistically speaking, too 
great contrasts of black and white. Want of tone is the defect of these pic- 
tures, but in everything else the effect is all that can be desired. The paten- 
tee also proposes the application of his process for manufacturing purposes. 
He says, “It can be applied to the production of clock and chronometer 
dials, watch dials, thermometers, barometers, compass faces, and tablets of 
every description, ensuring a degree of accuracy never yet attained by the 
engraver. ‘They can be produced at less than one-third the cost of the 
materials at present in use for the above purposes, and far excel in appear- 
ance anything ever yet attempted. It cannot be injured by any length of 
time or atmospheric changes, and can be washed as an ordinary piece of 
porcelain.” 

Curious Photographic Results. — At the Dublin meeting of the British As- 
sociation, M. L’ Abbe Moigno presented, in the name of M. Bertsch, micro- 
scopic photographs ; in the name of M. Neiper de St. Victor, a perfectly new 
method of exhibiting, by means of photography, the phosphorescence and 
fluorescence of bodies; and in the name of M. Bingham, improved photo- 
graphic copies of oil paintings. 

Photographic Fac-similes of Ancient Manuscripts. —'The powers of pho- 
tography have very recently been employed with great success in producing a 
number of fac-simile copies of the Codex Argenteus of Ulphilas, the oldest 
(fourth century) sample extant of the Gothic language, the great mother- 
tongue of the whole German stock. Dr. Leo, a gentleman connected with 
the Royal Library in Berlin, was led by the numerous variations in the dif- 
ferent reprints of the Ulphilas texts, to travel to Upsala, where the MS. is 
still preserved, and there take photographic pictures on glass (so called neg- 
atives) of about sixty pages, containing disputed texts. His original idea 
was simply that of obtaining a fac-simile for convenient study at home; but 
the process itself has gone a great way to solve the difficulties and disputes, 
by showing clearly what forms part of the original manuscript, and what has 
been written in or over it subsequently. The success of this application of 
photography, will, perhaps, incite the curators of our valuable libraries to 
publish fac-simile editions of rare MSS. for the benefit of the distant student, 
and submit all palimpsests and other recondite parchments to this most de- 
tective test before proceeding to purchase. 

Mr. Beckingham, a photographist of Birmingham, England, recently in. 
troduced a process which is a modification of two dry collodion procésses, 
and combines the advantages of both gelatine and glycerine. He primarily 
prepares his plates with Ramsden’s collodion in a slightly acid bath, and after 


20* 


234 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


a good washing, a solution made by dissolving 180 grains of pure gelatine 
in twenty ounces of water, filtering whilst hot, and when nearly cold, adding 
three ounces of glycerine of specific gravity 1.3000, is poured upon the plate 
for a few seconds, and the plate is then dried. Plates prepared in this way 
have been kept for thirty-eight days without producing any diminution of sen- 
sitiveness. Previous to developing, the plate is immersed in cold water for 
five minutes, the development being accomplished either with gallic acid 
and nitrate of silver, or pyrogallic acid. 

Newell’s Photographic Portraits. — A new invention by Mr. Newell, of 
Philadelphia, consists in crystallizing a photograph or other picture on paper, 
and securing the photograph thus prepared between two plates of glass by a 
transparent cement, which renders the whole impervious to air or dampness, 
securing durability in any climate. The coloring is then applied, which, 
being transmitted through this transparent medium, produces the peculiar 
softness and natural appearance of texture, while it preserves every line, ex- 
pression, and feature precisely as taken by the camera. The whole effect is 
to produce a picture more exact in tints, shadows, and colors, and more per- 
fect in its minutest details, than has heretofore been obtained; at the same 
time there is a roundness and stereoscopic appearance which no other picture 
possesses without the aid of the stereoscope itself. 

Crayon Photographs. — The shading of the so-called Crayon photographs, 
invented by Mr. Mayall of London, and called Crayon, from their close re- 
semblance to crayon drawings, is effected by means of a revolving dise in 
which the opening is in the form of a small star. This is interposed between 
the object, or sitter, and the camera; and the central portion of the star is 
made large enough to admit the rays from that part of the object which is 
to be shown in strong light, whilst the rays from those parts which are to be 
gradually shaded off to a dark background, are partially intercepted by the 
points of the star 


DRY COLLODION PROCESSES. 


Mr. G. R. Berry has recently published in the Chemist the following re- 
sume of the various dry collodion processes now in use in photography : 

We will take first the ordinary collodion process, which is thus divided : 

. Preparation of the collodion. 

. Preparation of the nitrate of silver bath. 

3. Preparation of the developing solution — positive and negative. 
4, Removal of the surplus chemicals. 

5. Varnishing. 

Collodion is, as all are aware, a solution of one of the pyroxyline com- 
pounds, in a mixture of alcohol and ether, and holding also in solution an 
iodide, or a mixture of iodide and bromide of potassium, ammonium, cad- 
mium, or other bases. The number of these is not very extensive, as the 
case will admit only those soluble in the menstruum before mentioned, but 
if the ingredients are few in number, the variations in quantity and relative 
adjustment are almost infinite, as every photographer has his series of pet. 
fancies, and to this fact nearly all the disheartening failures of amateurs are 


Sy 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 235 


attributable, and almost every instance of success has been attained by those 
who, adopting one formula, have adjusted their silver bath and developer in 
accordance ; and, therefore, when the impressions fail to be successful, have 
only these three items to examine or replace. The silver bath varies in its 
strength from twenty to sixty grains per ounce of water, and it is on the 
proper reaction between the collodionized plate and the nitrate of silver in 
solution all success depends. The most approved formula for the silver bath 
for the negative and dry processes I believe to be the following : 


Nitrate of silyer, that has been fused and probably containing a portion 
MRE E RAR ot Pda ng ase ps) a as Sroaivan arena See shai ore ats <ieys om x eomels sinen ee «Aare tenes 1 ounce. 
Dissolve in 4 oz. water, to which must be added iodide of potassium,..... ..20 grains, 


This mixture must be well agitated at intervals for one hour. By this 
means the strong solution of nitrate of silver dissolves a portion of the pre- 
cipitated iodide, and lets fall another portion on the addition of water to 
make up fourteen fluid ounces. The solution is then filtered and is ready 
for use. The collodion plates used will present an even primrose-colored 
surface, without strice or other markings, and the developed impressions will 
be clear and free from any irregularity of coating. The collodion process 
negative has, in itself, many advantages. Its great advantage is — exquisite 
sensibility, inasmuch as under favorable circumstances instantaneous impres- 
sions may be obtained; at the same time the delicacy of definition is all that 
can be desired, and if not equal to albumen, it is the fault in the preparation 
of the pyroxyline from which the collodion is made. It is facile in manipu- 
lation and speedy in its perfected results. Its disadvantage is the necessity 
of obtaining the impressions in the camera in the first few minutes from the 
excitation of the plate; it is therefore impossible to work far away from the 
dark closet or the tent in which the plates are prepared and developed. It 
is this that has prompted experimenters to devise some plan by which the 
sensitiveness of the plate might be indefinitely prolonged, and I lay before you 
the various plans proposed, in the order of their publication, as correctly as 
my means will allow. 

If we excite a collodion plate in the usual way, and leave it in the dark 
slide until dry, we shall find that the nitrate of silver film, as it concentrates 
by evaporation, dissolves out the iodide from the collodion surface, and 
eventually crystallizes in minute stellar groups, completely destroying the 
utility of the surface as a photographic medium. The prevention of this 
result was the first problem to be solved if the plates were to be preserved 
any length of time after preparation. At first various plans were tried to 
prevent the evaporation altogether, as, for instance, laying a second glass 
plate directly upon the collodionized surface. Thus Messrs. Spiller and 
Crooks attempted the same object by steeping the prepared plate in a strong 
solution of a deliquescent nitrate. At first zinc, and subsequently magnesia, 
were employed. At a later period, Messrs. Shadbolt and Lyte partially 
washed off the excess of nitrate of silver from the plate, and poured over it a 
solution of honey, and I do not think there is, even now, a better process 
extant. 


236 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Simple oxymel, glycerine, treacle, and various other substances have also 
been employed. During this period the somewhat remarkable process of 
M. Taupenot was published, and was as follows: The plate was first coated 
with collodion and sensitized in the usual way, the surface washed, and 
mixture of albumen and honey slightly iodized was poured over it; it was 
then allowed to dry, and again plunged into the silver bath and rinsed, when 
it might be used, either wet or dry. The theory of the process, at the time 
it came out, was imperfectly understood; and, as it involved very operose 
manipulations, it was not so generally used as it deserved. The main point 
was the coating the excited collodion surface with the albumen, thus filling 
its pores and preserving it in some measure from the action of the air; and 
it being ascertained that even if the whole of the free nitrate were removed 
by washing, and the plate dried in the dark chamber, it was yet sensitive, 
although in ‘a inferior degree than when recently prepared. 

Dr. Hill Norris proposed to cover the washed plates with gelatine, and I 
believe his dried plates preserve their sensibility for many months. 

Mr. Sparling employed a solution of dextrine mixed with honey, and iod- 
ized in the same way as Taupenot, also following him in two immersions in 
the silver bath. 

Mr. Maxwell Lyte has yet more recently advocated the use of what he 
terms meta-gelatine, produced by boiling a solution of gelatine with sulphuric 
acid until it ceases to gelatinize on cooling, then removing the acid by diges- 
tion upon carbonate of lime, filtering, and adding a portion of clarified 
honey. This is poured over the plate, without previously washing, and 
stored away until required for use. ‘This is certainly the quickest, and, as 
far as I have seen it tried, the most satisfactory process, as it may be used 
indifferently, either wet or dry. 


SIMPLE METHOD OF DETECTING COUNTERFEIT PHOTOGRAPHIC 
BANK BILLS. 


In most cases, a photographic counterfeit bank note may be detected by 
the following simple experiment : 

Procure a half ounce of fluid of the solution of Cyanide of potassium — 
which may be procured at any respectable drug store. With a drop or two 
of this liquid, moisten any part of the suspected bill, and if it be a photo- 
graph bill the color will in two or three minutes be changed or removed. If 
the bill be genuine — that is, no photograph—it will produce no change 
upon its color or face. 


ON A MOVABLE HORIZONTAL SUN-DIAL, WHICH SHOWS CORRECT 
SOLAR TIME WITHIN A FRACTION OF A MINUTE. 


In a communication on the above subject, read to the British Association, 
Dublin, by M. Donovan, the author first gave a short account of common 
horizontal dials, showing that, in consequence of the penumbral shadow of 
the gnomon, they could scarcely ever give the time within three minutes, 
even when they were well constructed and carefully set. He then explained 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 23% 


his own dial, which, though large, was portable, with means of setting it in 
the meridian and truly horizontally, which he explained. The circle of the 
dial was about thirteen inches diameter; towards its south point a fine 
needle rose, from which two human hairs proceeded, one in a fixed position, 
parallel to the earth’s axis at the place; this was supported by a stout brass 
arch, which could be shortened or lengthened, and which had a fine slit at its 
upper part to hold the fixed hair. The shadow of this hair the author stated 
was always sharp and well-defined for about three inches from the needle, 
round which a small hour-circle of about that diameter was graduated. The 
floating hair, as the author called it, being taken by the hand and laid along 
the shadow of the fixed hair so as to bisect it where it was sharp, was 
stretched out to an outer graduated hour-circle, where the induction could 
be easily read off to a fraction of a minute, amounting to a few seconds. 


NEW TELESCOPE FOR THE PARIS OBSERVATORY. 


A new telescope of the largest dimensions is now in the process of con- 
struction for the Paris Observatory. The objective of the telescope will be 
constructed with two dises of flint glass and crown glass, cast in the glass- 
house of Chauce & Co., Birmingham, England, which were on exhibition at 
the Crystal Palace in Paris. These glasses were imperfectly appreciated by 
the jury; for it was thought that after extracting certain portions that were 
not perfectly transparent and remelting them several times, they would not 
afford an objective over forty centimetres in diameter. They were, how- 
ever, deemed irreproachable, and were purchased for 50,000 francs ; and it is 
now expected that the objective made from them will leave a diameter of 
seventy-three centimetres. If the curvature obtained be perfect, the achro- 
matism without fault, and the expected size be attained, France will have 
the most powerful lens in the world. 


TELESCOPE STEREOSCOPES. 


Mr. Jas. Elliot, in a communication to the Philosophical Magazine (Lon- 
don, Jan. 1857), states that he has recently succeeded in constructing what 
he believes to be a new form of the stereoscope. Its object is to unite large 
binocular photographie pictures in a different way from any that has hitherto 
been followed. The pictures are placed side by side, and viewed through 
two small telescopes, like those of opera-glasses, with the directions of their 
axes crossing each other; the left hand picture being viewed with the right 
eye, and the right-hand picture with the left eye. The two telescopes are 
connected together, the connecting apparatus being capable of two adjust- 
ments; one to suit the width of the eyes, and the other to give the obliquity 
required. When the instrument is placed on a stand, as I have it, two other 
adjustments are required; the first to bring the telescopes to the proper ele- 
vation, and the second to bring the plane of their axes into parallelism with 
the upper or lower margins of the pictures. 

The instrument is constructed in such a way that these adjustments are 


238 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


made with great facility; and when the pictures are united, the effect is ex- 
cellent. 
THE KALOTROPE. 


Rey. T. Rose, of Glasgow, communicates to the London Atheneum the 
following description of a new instrument, an improvement on Prof. Quet- 
etet’s Thaumatrope, which he calls a “ Kalotrope” : 

The kalotrope exhibits to an entire company the well-known illusions of 
the Thaumatrope, but its claims to be considered a perfectly new optical ar- 
rangement rest in a peculiarity of action by which a number of illusive 
changes are brought over any one disc of devices. ‘The mechanical construc- 
tion of the apparatus consists of two concentric wheels, to which a consider- 
able range of velocity is given by a series of wheels and pulleys. They 
move in contrary directions — the one wheel (the hinder) carrying the disc 
of devices; and the front one carrying a disc with radial perforations, differ- 
ing in number and character. To understand the effect, we must have 
regard to the angular motion of the perforations through which alone the 
devices can be seen. Now it is obvious, that if the devices were at rest, and 
the perforations only moved, the latter must pass over a space equal to the 
full breadth of the figures in order to clear them ; but since the devices and 
perforations are both moving, and in contrary directions, the devices are 
narrowed in one of their diameters in proportion to the relative velocities of 
the wheels. But whilst the dimensions of the devices are measured to the 
eye be the relative motions of the wheels, their number is dependent solely 
on the number of perforations in the front disc. Hence arises an almost 
indefinite field of illusion, in the way of multiplication, combination, involu- 
tion, and intricacy of motion. I have prepared an extensive series of dises 
to bring out these effects. The kalotrope is not, however, confined in its 
action to merely pleasing illusions; it likewise offers valuable scientific illus- 
trations in regard to the intensity and duration of spectra, the measure of 
persistence, and certain remarkable properties of complementary color. I 
think the kalotrope is a device which may be recommended to the drawing- 
room for its beautiful effects, and may prove of value in the lecture-room as 
an exponent of scientific truth. ; 


THE OPTHALMOSCOPE. 


An instrument called the Ophthalmoscope, by the aid of which the human 
eye may be internally examined, has recently been brought to the notice of 
the scientific world. The instrument is in the form of a concave mirror, 
with a hole in the centre, in which a lens is inserted; to this another lens is 
added which, however, is separate and movable. When the instrument is 
used, a lighted candle is placed by the side of the patient. The concave 
muror is then held in front of the eye to be examined, while the movable 
lens is suspended between the light and the mirror in such a manner as to 
concentrate the rays of the first on the second. ‘The reflected rays converge 
on the retina, and on passing through it diverge and render luminous the 
whole interior of the eye, which the observer can see by looking through 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 239 


the lens placed in the mirror’s centre. The retina and the lens form a mi- 
croscope, the multiplying power of which is about five hundred. 


SPHYGMOSCOPE. 


The above name has been given to an instrument invented by Dr. Scott 
Alison, of London, for indicating the movements of the heart and blood- 
vessels. It consists in a small ene containing alcohol, or other liquid, 

i provided with a thin India 
rubber wall, where it is to be 
applied to the chest. At the 
opposite extremity the cham- 
ber communicates with a glass 
tube, which rises to some 
height above its level— the 
chamber. Liquid is supplied 
to the instrument until it 
stands in the tube a little 
above the level of the cham- 
ber: The pressure of the 
column of liquid in the tube 
acts upon the elastic or yield- 
ing wall of India rubber, and 
causes it to protrude. ‘This 
protruding part, or chest- 
piece, is very readily affected 
by external impulse ; it yields 
to the slightest touch, and, 
being pushed inwards, causes 
a displacement of this liquid 
in the non-elastic chamber, 
and forces a portion of the 
liquid up the tube. The pro- 
truding wall of India rubber 
is driven inwards when it is 
brought in contact with that 
portion of the chest which is 
struck by the apex of the 
heart, and arise in the tube takes place. When the heart retires, the India 
rubber wall, affected by the pressure of the column of liquid in the tube, is 
pressed back, follows the chest, and permits the liquid to descend. The 
degree to which the India rubber wall is forced in by the tube, and the 
amount of protrusion of the India rubber wall which takes place when the 
heart retires is denoted by a corresponding fall in the tube. The tube is 
supplied with a graduated scale, to denote the rise and fall with exactitude. 
The glass tube is provided at the top with a brass screw and collar, to 
prevent the egress of the liquid when the instrument is not in use, or a bulb 


240 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


with an orifice may be supplied. Whenemployed, the glass tube is left open 
to permit of the passage of the air to and fro. 

Figure 1 represents an instrument without a stand ; figure 2 is another form 
of it without a stand ; and figure 3 is the most perfect form, but is not quite 
so convenient. 

The glass tube is a foot or more long, and the round bore is about tho 
one-eighth part of an inch. If the bore be much larger, the movement will 
be inconsiderable ; if much less, capillary attraction will interfere and prevent 
free motion. 

When the instrument (fig. 3.) is to be employed, mounted upon its stand, 
itis placed upon a firm table with the chamber projecting beyond it. The 
person whose heart is to be examined is seated upon a firm chair, with his 
chest erect and free from motion. The protruding India rubber wall of the 
chamber, or chest-piece, is delicately made to receive the blow of the apex 
of the heart. The liquid in the tube is now observed to be in motion. With 
persons in ordinary health, the liquid rises and falls about an inch. ‘This 
rise and fall, after taking place three or four times, is followed by a much 
longer rise and fall to the extent of three or four inches, due to the advance- 
ment and retirement of the wall of the chest during the acts of respiration. 
The shorter rise and fall are again repeated, and are again followed by the 
longer rise and fall caused by the motions of the chest. During the longer 
rise and fall due to respiration, the beat and retreat of the heart are still to 
be recognized by brief interruptions in the rise and fall of the liquid. Thin 
persons are very favorable for examination ; on the other hand, the corpu- 
lent, less readily affect the instrument. Placed upon the heart, it indicates 
strokes of that organ which are so feeble as to have no corresponding pulse 
at the wrist. 

No pause whatever in the movement of the liquid has been at any time ob- 
served when the sphygmoscope has been carefully placed so as to receive the 
full beat, and fall back with freedom. This would go to show that the heart, 
however slow, is in constant motion, and, contrary to the belief of many 
physiologists, enjoys no pause. ‘There is no pause in the descent of the 
liquid, which takes place when the heart retires from the thoracic walls, in 
the middle of which movement, it has been said, a very short pause is to be 
observed in living animals having the heart exposed. 

When the heart is excited, the liquid in the sphygmoscope rises and falls 
more than usual ; but the rise and fall of the excited enlarged heart is much 
the same as the rise and fall of the excited normal organ. For the most 
part, the enlarged heart gives movements to the instrument when placed 
upon the ribs and sternum, whilst the normally-sized heart affects it more ex- 
clusively when it is placed upon the fifth intercostal space. 

The sphygmoscope indicates with exactitude both the absolute and the 
comparative influences upon theheart, of food, cordials, stimulants, and tonic 
medicines. It does the same in respect to depressing causes, such as hunger, 
cold, and sedatives. With the aid of this instrument the fact is demonstrated 
that the action of the heart may be great when the pulse is small, that the 
heart may strike the instrument with force when the pulse scarcely affects 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 241 


the liquid of the hand sphygmoscope. It affords proof that the pulse is one 
thing, and the heart’s action another, and teaches that the pulse is only an 
approximate sign of the state of the heart. It is found also, that while cold 
at the surface and extremities may depress the pulse, the heart may remain 
little enfeebled, or even become excited, and that warmth and friction applied 
to the extremities may cause an excited pulse without there being any ac- 
companying increased force of the heart. 

The sphygmoscope (fig. 2,) having a level elastic wall instead of a pro- 
truding one, and having a glass tube with an almost capillary bore, forms a 
remarkably delicate indicator of the pulse. It is so delicate in its impressions 
that it is appreciably affected by the regurgutant wave in the jugular veins, 
and by the wave in arteries much smaller than the radial. From its nicety 
in manifesting the beat of the blood-wayve, it is very valuable. 

By means of this hand instrument applied to the arteries a comparison is 
readily made between the time of the beat of the heart and the rise of the 
arteries under the influence of the blood-wave. This instrument is much 
more delicate than the finger in such an inquiry. The impressions made 
upon the fingers of two hands fail to be conveyed with sufficient nicety to 
the mind to tell with certainty the relative time of the beat of the heart and 
arteries. Except in cases of extreme slowness, the sensations obtained from 
the two hands impressed at nearly the same time, do not admit of a distinct 
difference in respect to time being made out. It has been to this very defect 
the erroneous idea, that the beat of the heart and the beat of the pulse are 
synchronous, or nearly so, owes its origin and continuance. 

The hand sphygmoscope placed upon the radial artery, shows a rise of the 
liquid while there is a fall in the sphygmoscope placed over the heart. As 
the liquid in the one instrument starts from below, the liquid in the other 
starts from above, and as the liquid in the one reaches the top of its ascent, 
the liquid in the other reaches the bottom of its descent, to renew their op- 
posing course. The movements in the two instruments at the same instant 
are always opposed, and the whole time occupied in the movement of one 
instrument in one direction appears to be occupied by the movement of the 
other in the opposite direction. The movements alternate with as much ap- 
parent exactitude as the arms of a well-adjusted balance. When the lapse 
of time between the beat of the heart and the pulse at the wrist was first 
observed, suspicion of disease of the aorta was entertained, but the subse- 
quent examination of many persons proved that this alternation was natural. 
In some twenty persons, subjected to examination, the complete alternation 
has been made out without the shadow of a doubt. These persons were of 
all ages above childhood, and had the pulse of different degrees of rapidity, 
from 60 to 100. 

Hand sphygmoscopes placed upon the carotid, the barachial, the radial, 
the femoral, and the dorsal artery of the foot, rise at the same instant, and fall 
at the same point of time. 

These facts prove the existence of two great laws not previously enunci- 
ated — first, that the heart’s beat alternates with the pulse at the wrist; 


21 


242 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


secondly, that the pulse of arteries beyond the chest takes place in all parts 
at the same instant, and without any appreciable interval. 

The sphygmoscope forms a good pneumoscope. It delicately measures 
the rise and fall of the chest in respiration. It likewise declares the relative 
duration of inspiration and expiration, and may thus prove useful in the 
detection of incipient phthisis, and other pulmonary diseases. When the 
liquid has attained its highest elevation at the end of inspiration, it immedi- 
ately begins to fall; but when it has reached the lowest point at the end of 
expiration it remains there some instants. ‘The ascent is slower than the 
descent. After the fall of an ordinary expiration, a forced expiration gives a 
second fall. 

he sphygmoscope (fig. 1,) may be employed without a stand, and is then 
more portable ; but from the want of a fixed basis, and from the motion of 
the ribs on which it must rest, its manifestations are less extensive and 
satisfactory. When employed without a stand, as it must rest upon the ribs, 
the elastic wall of the chamber should be plain, and not protruding. 


ON THE SOUNDS PRODUCED BY THE COMBUSTION OF GASES 
IN TUBES. 


Professor John Tyndall, in a communication to the London Journal of 
Gas Lighting, on the above subject, after reviewing the various theories en- 
tertained at different periods,—- proceeds to say:—JIn 1818, Mr. Faraday 
took up the subject, and showed that the tones were produced when the glass 
tube was enveloped by an atmosphere higher in temperature than 212° Fahr. 
That they were not duc to aqueous vapor, was further shown by the fact that 
they could be produced by the combustion of carbonic oxide. Ue referred 
the sounds to successive explosions produced by the periodic combination of 
the atmospheric oxygen with the issuing jet of hydrogen gas. This is un- 
doubtedly the true source of the sounds. 

I am not aware that the dependence of the pitch of the note on the size of 
the flame has as yet been noticed. ‘To this point I will, in the first place, 
briefly direct attention. 

A tube twenty-five inches long was placed over an ignited jet of hydrogen: 
the sound produced was the fundamental note of the tube. _ 

A tube twelve and a half inches long was brought over the same flame, 
but no sound was obtained. 

The flame was lowered, so as to make it as small as possible, and the tube 
last mentioned was again brought over it; it gave a clear melodious note, 
which was the octave of that obtained with the twenty-five inch tube. 

The twenty-five inch tube was now brought over the same flame; it no 
longer gave its fundamental note, but exactly the same note as that obtained 
from the tube of half its length. 

Thus we see, that although the speed with which the explosions succeed 
each other depends upon the length of the tube, the flame has also a voice in 
the matter: that to produce a musical sound, its size must be such as to 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 243 


enable it to explode in unison cither with the fundamental pulses of the tube, 
or with the pulses of its harmonic divisions. 

With a tube six feet nine inches long, by varying the size of the flame, 
and adjusting the depth to which it reached within the tube, I have obtained 
a series of notes in the ratio of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 

These experiments explain the capricious nature of the sounds sometimes 
obtained by lecturers upon this subject. It is, however, always possible to 
render the sounds clear and sweet, by suitably adjusting the size of the flame 
to the length of the tube. * 

Since the experiments of Mr. Faraday, nothing, that I am aware of, has 
been added to this subject, until quite recently. In a recent number of Pog- 
gendorff’s “‘ Annalen,” an interesting experiment is described by M. Schaff- 
gotsch, and made the subject of some remarks by Professor -Poggendorff 
himself. A musical note was obtained with a jet of ordinary coal gas, and 
it was found that when the voice was pitched to the same note, the flame 
assumed a lively motion, which could be augmented until the flame was 
actually extinguished. M. Schaffgotsch does not describe the conditions 
necessary to the success of his experiment; and it was while endeavoring to 
find out these conditions that I alighted upon the facts which form the prin- 
cipal subject of this brief notice. I may remark that M. Schaffgotsch’s 
result may be produced, with certainty, if the gas be caused to issue under 
sufficient pressure through a very small orifice. 

In the first experiments I made use of a tapering brass jet, ten and a half 
inches long, and having a superior orifice about one-twentieth of an inch in 
diameter. The shaking of the singing flame, within the glass tube, when the 
voice was properly pitched, was so manifest as to be seen by several hundred 
people at once. 

I placed a syrene within a few feet of the singing flame, and gradually 
heightened the note produced by the instrument. As the sounds of the flame 
and syrene approached perfect unison, the flame shook, jumping up and 
down within the tube. The interval between the jumps became greater, 
until the unison was perfect, when the motion ceased for an instant; the 
syrene still increasing in pitch, the motion of the flame again appeared, the 
jumpings became quicker and quicker, until finally it escaped cognizance by 
the eye. 

This experiment showed that the jumping of the flame, observed by M. 
Schaffeotsch, is the optical expression of the beats which occur at each side 
of the perfect unison; the beats could be heard in exact accordance with th 
shortening and lengthening of the flame. Beyond the region of these beats, 
in both directions, the sound of the syrene produced no visible motion of the 
flame. What is true of the syrene is true of the voice. 

While repeating and varying these experiments, I once had a silent flame 
Within a tube, and on pitching my voice to the noite of the tube, the flame, to 


* With a tube fourteen and a half inches in length and an exceedingly minute jet 
of gas, I obtained, without altering the quantity of gas, a note and its octave ; the 
flame possessed the power of changing its own dimensions to suit both notes. 


244 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


my great surprise, instantly started into song. Placing the finger on the end 
of the tube, and silencing the melody, on repeating the experiment, the same 
result was obtained. 

I placed the syrene near the flame, as before. The latter was burning 
tranquilly within its tube. Ascending gradually from the lowest notes of the 
instrument, at the moment when the sound of the syrene reached the pitch 
of the tube which surrounded the gas flame, the latter suddenly stretched 
itself and commenced its song, which continued indefinitely after the syrene 
had ceased to sound. 

With the jet which I have described, and a glass tube, twelve inches long, 
and from one-half to three-fourths of an inch internal diameter, this result 
can be obtained with ease and certainty. If the voice be thrown a little 
higher or lower than the note due to the tube, no visible effect is produced 
upon the flame: the pitch of the voice must lie within the region of the aud- 
ible beats. 

By varying the length of the tube we vary the note produced, and the 
voice must be modified accordingly. ; 

That the shaking of the flame, to which I have already referred, proceeds 
in exact accordance with the beats, is beautifully shown by a tuning-fork 
which gives the same note as the flame. Loading the fork so as to throw it 
slightly out of unison with the flame, when the former is sounded and brought 
near the flame, the jumpings are seen at exactly the same intervals as those 
in which the beats are heard. When the tuning-fork is brought over a reson- 
ant jar or bottle, the beats may be heard and the jumpings seen by a thousand 
people at once. By changing the load upon the tuning-fork, or by slightly 
altering the size of the flame, the quickness with which the beats succeed each 
other may be changed, but in all cases the Jumpings address the eye at the 
same moment that the beats address the ear. 

With the tuning-fork I have obtained the same results as with the voice and 
syrene. Holding a fork over a tube which responds to it, and which con- 
tains within it a silent flame of gas, the latter immediately starts into song. 
I have obtained this result with a series of tubes varying from ten and a half 
to twenty-nine inches in length. The following experiment could be made. 
A series of tubes, capable of producing the notes of the gamut, might be 
placed over suitable jets of gas; all being silent, let the gamut be run over 
by a musician with an instrument sufficiently powerful, placed at a distance 
of twenty or thirty yards. At the sound of each particular note, the gas-jet 
contained in the corresponding tube would instantly start into song. 

I must remark, however, that with the jet which I have used, the experi- 
ment is most easily made with a tube about eleven or twelve inches long ; 
with longer tubes it is more difficult to prevent the flame from singing 
spontaneously, that is, without external excitation. 

The principal point to be attended to is this. With a tube, say of twelve 
inches in length, the flame requires to occupy a certain position in the tube 
in order that it shall sing with a maximum intensity. Let the tube be 
raised, so that the flame may penetrate it to a less extent; the energy of the 
sound will be thereby diminished, and a point (a), will at length be attained 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 245 


where it will cease altogether. Above this point, for a certain distance, the 
flame may be caused to burn tranquilly and silently for any length of time, 
but when excited by the voice it will sing. 

When the flame is too near the point (a), on being excited by the voice or 
by a tuning-fork, it will respond {or a short time, and then cease. A little 
above the point where this cessation occurs, the flame burns tranquilly, if 
unexcited, but if once caused to sing it will continue to sing. With such a 
flame, which is not too sensitive to external impressions, I have been able 
to reverse the effect hitherto described, and to stop the song at pleasure by the 
sound of my voice, or by a tuning-fork, without quenching the flame itself. 
Such a flame I find may be made to obey the word of command, and to 
sing or cease to sing as the experimenter pleases. 

The mere clapping of the hands, producing an explosion, shouting at an 
incorrect pitch, shaking of the tube surrounding the flame, are, when the ar- 
rangements are properly made, ineffectual. Each of these modes of dis- 
turbance doubiless affects the flame, but the impulses do not accumulate, 
as in the case where the note of the tube itself is struck. It appears as if 
the flame were deaf to a single impulse, as the tympanum would probably 
be, and, like the latter, needs the accumulation of impulses to give it suf- 
ficient motion. A difference of half a tone between two tuning-forks is suf 
ficient to cause one of these to set the flame singing, while the other is power- 
less to produce this effect. 

I have said that the voice must be pitched to the note of the tube which 
surrounds the flame; it would be more correct to say the note produced by 
the flame when singing. In all cases, this note is sensibly higher than that 
due to the open tube which surrounds the flame; this ought to be the case, 
because of the high temperature of the vibrating column. An open tube, 
for example, which, when a tuning-fork is held over its end, gives a maxi- 
mum reinforcement, produces, when surrounding a single flame, a note 
higher than that of the fork. To obtain the latter note, the tube must be 
sensibly longer. 

What is the constitution of the flame of gas while it produces musical 
sounds? ‘This is the next question to which I will briefly call attention. 
Looked at with the naked eye, the sounding flame appears constant; but is 
the constancy real? Supposing each pulse to be accompanied by a physical 
change of the flame, such a change would not be perceptible to the naked 
eye, on account of the velocity with which the pulses succeed -each other. 
The light of the flame would appear continuous on the same principle that 
the troubled portion of a descending liquid jet appears continuous, although 
by proper means this portion of a jet can be shown to be composed of iso- 
lated drops. If we cause the image of the flame to pass speedily over dif- 
ferent portions of the retina, the changes accompanying the periodic im- 
pulses will manifest themselves in the character of the image thus traced. 

I took a glass tube, three feet two inches long, and about an inch and a 
half in internal diameter, and, placing it over a very small flame of olefiant 
gas (common gas will also answer), obtained the fundamental note of the 
tube. On moving the head to and fro, the image of the sounding flame was 


Zs 


246 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


separated into a series of distinct images; the distance between the images 
depended upon the velocity with which the head was moved. This experi- 
ment is suited to a darkened lecture-room. It was still easier to obtain the 
separation of the images in this way, when a tube six feet nine inches in 
length and a larger flame were made use of. 

As suggested to me by a lady to whom I had the pleasure of showing 
these experiments, the same result is obtained when an opera-glass is moved 
to and fro before the eye. 

But the most convenient mode of observing the flame is with a mirror; 
and it can be seen either directly in the mirror, or by projection upon a 
screen. 

A lens of thirty-three centimeters focus was placed in front of a flame of 
common gas, upwards of an inch long, and a paper screen was hung at 
about six or eight feet distance behind the flame. In front of the lensa 
small looking-glass was held, which received the light that had passed 
through the lens, and reflected it back upon the screen placed behind the 
latter. By adjusting the position of the lens, a well defined inverted image 
of the flame was obtained upon the screen. On moving the mirror the image 
was displaced; and, owing to the retention of the impression by the retina, 
when the movement was sufficiently speedy, the image described a continu- 
ous luminous track. Holding the mirror still, the six foot nine inch tube 
was placed over the flame; the latter changed its shape the moment it com- 
menced to sound, remaining, however, well defined upon the screen. On 
now moving the mirror, a totally different effect was produced ; instead of 
a continuous track of light, a series of distinct images of the sounding flame 
was observed. The distance of these images apart varied with the motion 
of the mirror; and, of course, could be made, by suitably turning the 
reflector, to form a ring of images. The experiment is beautiful, and in a 
dark room may be made visible to a large audience. 

The experiment was also varied in the following manner : — A triangular 
prism of wood had its sides coated with rectangular pieces of looking-glass ; 
it was suspended by a thread, with its axis vertical ; torsion was imparted 
to the thread, and the prism acted upon by this torsion caused to rotate. It 
was so placed that its three faces received in succession the beam of light sent 
from the flame through the lens in front of it, and through the images upon 
the screen. On commencing its motion, the images were but slightly sepa- 
rated, but became more and more so as the motion approached its maximum. 
This once past, the images drew closer together again, until they ended ina 
kind of luminous ripple. Allowing the acquired torsion to act, the same: 
series of effects could be produced, the motion being in an opposite direction. 
In these experiments, that half of the tube which was turned towards the 
screen was coated with lampblack, so as to cut off the direct light of the 
jet from the screen. 

But what is the state of the flame in the interval between two images # 
The flame of common gas or of olefiant gas, owes its luminousness to the 
solid particles of carbon discharged into it. If we blow against a luminous 
gas flame, a sound is heard, a small explosion in fact, and by such a puff 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 247 


the luminousness may be caused to disappear. During a windy night the 
exposed gas-jets in the shops are often deprived of their light and burn blue. 
In like manner the common blowpipe jet depriyes burning coal gas of its 
brilliant light. I hence concluded that the explosions, the repetition of 
which produces the musical sound in the case before us, rendered, at the 
moment they occurred, the combustion so perfect as to extinguish the solid 
carbon particles; but Limagined that the images on the screen would, on 
closer examination, be found united by spaces of blue, which, owing to their 
dimness, were not seen by the method of projection. This, in many instances, 
was found to be the case. 

I was not, however, prepared for the following result :— A flame of ole- 
fiant gas, rendered almost as small as it could be, was procured. The three 
feet two inch tube was placed over it; the flame on singing became elong- 
ated and lost some of its light, still it was bright at its top; looked at in 
the moving mirror, a beaded line of great beauty was observed; in front of 
each bead was a little luminous star ; after it, and continuous with it, a spot 
of rich blue light, which terminated and left, as far as I could judge, a per- 
fectly dark space between it and the next following luminous star. I shall 
examine this further when time permits me ; but, as far as I can ‘at present 
judge, the flame was actually extinguished and re-lighted in accordance with 
the sonorous pulsations. 

When a silent flame, capable, however, of being excited by the voice in 
the manner already described, is placed within a tube, and the continuous 
line of light produced by it in the moving mirror is observed, I know no ex- 
periment more pretty than the resolution of this line into a string of richly 
luminous pearls at the instant when the voice is pitched to the proper note. 
This may be done at a considerable distance from the jet, and with the back 
turned towards it. 

The change produced in the line of beads when a tuning-fork, capable of 
giving beats with the flame, is brought over the tube, or over a resonant jar 
near it, is also extremely interesting to observe. I will not at present enter 
into a more minute description of these results. Sufficient, I trust, has been 
said to induce experimenters to produce the effects for themselves ; the sight 


of them will give more pleasure than any description of mine could possi- 
bly do. 


ON THE OPTICAL STUDY OF VIBRATIONS. 


A memoir has been recently presented to the French Academy, by M. 
Lissaijous ‘on the Optical Study of Vibrations.” The author proposes, 
in judging of the number of vibrations which occasion particular sounds, to 
reject all appeals to the ear, and to judge of the vibratory motions by the 
eye. He places on the exterior face of a tuning-fork a small mirror, and 
directs a sun-beam upon it, which is reflected upon a paper screen placed in 
the angle of its reflection; the beam is concentrated by a convergent lens. 
As long as the tuning-fork is silent the image is motionless, but if it is vi- 
brated the reflected ray vibrates in the same plane, and its extremity, rapidly 
oscillating on the screen, traces a lengthened image, whose superficies is in 


248 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


proportion to the amplitude of the vibratory motion and to the square of the 
intensity of the sound furnished. A deaf man may consequently ascertain 
whether the sound exists, or whether it increases, or whether it dies away, 
and follow the variations of the figure described by the reflected ray. Nor 
is this all. Does the experiment-maker desire to know if this tuning-fork is 
in accord with another tuning-fork, he places a second mirror upon this new 
tuning-fork, and it is placed upon the angle of reflection of the first, taking 
care that both planes of vibration shall be perpendicular to each other; the 
reflected ray will again be thrown upon the screen. If each of the tuning- 
forks be vibrated singly, the luminous image will be lengthened ; if the first 
tuning-fork produces a vertical extension, the second will produce a horizon- 
tal extension, and when both of them vibrate together, the experiment- 
maker will have at every instant the figure which results from the combina- 
tion, or from two rectangular motions. He demonstrates that the figure 
under these circumstances must be either a circle or a straight line, or some 
one of the intermediate ellipses. ‘The characteristic by which it may be dis- 
covered whether the two tuning-forks vibrate in unison, is that the figure, 
whatever it may be, remains permanent and like itself, although gradually 
diminishing by the progressive weakness of the initial movement. If on the 
contrary there is some difference between the two velocities of vibration, 
warning will be given of their existence by the deformation of the optical 
figure. In this way the eye will perceive differences which the most sensitive 
ear could not detect. If, instead of being in unison, the tuning-forks are in 
the octave, the optical figure becomes a sort of 8, which may change into a 
figure like the summit of a parabola; and here, too, the constancy of the 
change of the figure indicates that the octave is more or less just. All the 
musical intervals represented by the commensurable relations of the number 
of vibrations have their curves in which the two terms of the fraction are 
joined, written in geometrical language. Mirrors are not absolutely neces- 
sary to the application of this method, which consists in amplifying by op- 
tical means and composing together the vibratory motions of two bodies 
which are to be compared, so as to obtain without appealing to the ear a 
‘degree of precision which has no limit, except the irregularities of the me- 
chanical phenomenon, or its too rapid duration. 


ON THE EFFECT OF WIND ON THE INTENSITY OF SOUND. 


The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, presented at 
the British Association, Dublin, by Prof. Stokes : — 

The remarkable diminution in the intensity of sound, which is produced 
when a strong wind blows in a direction from the observer towards the source 
of sound, is familiar to everybody, but has not hitherto been explained, so 
far as the author is aware. At first sight we might be disposed to attribute 
it merely to the increase in the radius of the sound-wave which reaches the 
observer. ‘The whole mass of air being supposed to be carried uniformly 
along, the time which the sound would take to reach the observer, and con- 
sequently the radius of the sound-wave would be increased by the wind in 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 249 


the ratio of the velocity of sound to the sum of the velocities of sound and 
of the wind, and the intensity would be diminished in the inverse duplicate 
ratio. But the effect is much too great to be attributable to this cause. It 
would be a strong wind whose velocity was a twenty-fourth part of that 
of sound ; yet eveh in this case the intensity would be diminished by only 
about a twelfih part. The first volume of the ‘‘Annales de Chimie,” (1816), 
contains a paper by M. Delaroche, giving the results of some experiments 
made on this subject. It appeared from the experiments, First, that at 
small distances the wind has hardly any perceptible effect, the sound being 
propagated almost equally well in a direction contrary to the wind and in 
the direction of the wind; Secondly, that the disparity between the intensity 
of the sound propagated in these two directions becomes proportionally 
greater and greater as the distance increases; Thirdly, that sound is propa- 
gated rather better in a direction perpendicular to the wind than even in the 
direction of the wind. The explanation offered by the author of the present 
communication is as follows. If we imagine the whole mass of air in the 
neighborhood of the source of disturbance divided into horizontal strata, 
these strata do not all move with the same yelocity. The lower strata are 
retarded by friction against the earth, and by the various obstacles they meet 
with ; the upper by friction against the lower, and so on. Hence the velo- 
city increases from the ground upwards, conformably with observation. 
This difference of velocity disturbs the spherical form of the sound-wave, 
tending to make it somewhat of the form of an ellipsoid, the section of 
which by a vertical diametral plane parallel to the direction of the wind is 
an ellipse mecting the ground at an obtuse angle on the side towards which 
the wind is blowing, and an acute angle on the opposite side. Now, sound 
tends to propagate itself in a direction perpendicular to the sound-waye ; 
and if a portion of the wave is intercepted by an obstacle of large size, the 
space behind is left in a sort of sound-shadow, and the only sound there 
heard is what diverges from the general wave after passing the obstacle. 
Hence, near the earth, in a direction contrary to the wind, the sound con- 
tinually tends to be propagated upwards, and consequently there is a con- 
tinual tendency for an observer in that direction to be left in a sort of sound- 
shadow. Hence, at a sufficient distance, the sound ought to be very much 
enfeebled ; but near the source of disturbance this cause has not yet had 
time to operate, and therefore the wind produces no sensible effect, except 
what arises from the augmentation in the radius of the sound-wave, and this 
is too small to be perceptible. In the contrary direction, — that is, in the 
direction towards which the wind is blowing, — the sound tends to propa- 
gate itself downwards, and to be reflected from the surface of the earth ; 
and both the direct and reflected waves contribute to the effect perceived. 
The two waves assist each other so much the better as the angle between 
them is less, and this angle vanishes in a direction perpendicular to the wind. 
Hence, in the latter direction the sound ought to be propagated a little bet- 
ter than even in the direction of the wind, which agrees with the experiments 
of M. Delaroche. Thus the effect is referred to two known causes, — the 
increased velocity of the air in ascending, and the diffraction of sound. 


250 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ON A NEW AND SINGULAR ACOUSTIC PHENOMENA. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Mr. Donovan, in a com- 
munication, first explained the beats which are experienced when two strings 
tuned nearly, but not exactly, to unison, are struck at the same time. He 
then stated that the Earl Stanhope had observed that when a tuning fork 
whilst vibrating was held to the teeth, similar beats were heard, which he, 
Earl Stanhope, attributed in the two prongs of the tuning fork not being in 
exact unison. This effect the author often tried to experience, but never 
could succeed until upon one occasion, just after he had ceased from violent 
exercise, having applied the fork to his teeth, he distinctly heard the beats. 
He was thus led to the true origin of the phenomenon, which he could now 
experience whenever he wished by running a short distance, particularly up 
and down stairs. The effect was caused by the beatings of his own heart, 
or the pulsations of the circulating blood. Some authorities however, would 
explain the phenomenon described by the author, to one set of vibrations 
propagated to the auditory nerve through the bones of the teeth, and of the 
head, modified by the action of the heart interfering with other pulses propa- 
gated in the ordinary way through the air to the organ of hearing. 


VIBRATIONS OCCASIONED BY WATER FALLING OVER DAMS. 


At the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Promotion 
of Science, Professor Snell of Amherst, presented a communication on the 
vibrations occasioned by the water falling over the dam across the Connecti- 
cut river at Hadley and Holyoke, Mass. 

He first described the dam as a structure 1017 fect in length and thirty 
feet high, over which, at the time of his observations, about two feet of 
water was falling in an unbroken sheet. By descending to the base of the 
dam and looking behind the sheet of water, the currents of air rushing in and 
out could be perceptibly felt. These currents were set in motion by the 
water, and were vibratory. The action of the water produced rarefication, 
which in turn produced the pulsatory motion of the sheet, — the smallness 
of the space not being sufficiently large to allow a current through the entire 
length. These vibrations varied ; when the thermometer was at eighty, and 
the water two feet in depth, the vibrations were 137 per minute. When the 
temperature was at seventy, the vibrations were 180. 

The vibrations were in two segments, alternating with each other gener- 
ally, and were sufiicient at times to throw the sheet of water at its base ten 
inches outward, — produced, he did not doubt, by the pressure of the air be- 
hind. They were communicated to the ground, and were of suflicient force 
at times to be felt at Springfield, eight miles distant, pulsating the windows 
and doors at the same rate, 137 per minute ! 

Professor Hitchcock endorsed the view presented, and said that he had 
repeatedly seen the vibrations from a hill four miles distant, and it was a 
most beautiful sight. 

Mr. Charles Stodder of Boston, however, in a paper recently read before 


x 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Dal 


the Natural History Society, opposes the theory presented by Professor 
Snell, and considers that it is entirely disproved by a dam at Lewiston, 
where the water falls over an inclined plane, leaving no space for air under 
it, and yet the vibrations are very decided. 
According to the views of Mr. Stodder, the phenomenon is caused by that 
property of falling fluids by which they assume the globular form, which may 
be seen at the Kauterskill Falls on the Catskill Mountains, where the whole 
body of the failing water is broken into drops. Applying this principle to 
the fall over an artificial dam, the water at the very commencement of its 
descent begins to assume that form, and the further it descends the nearer 
it approaches to it. In passing over adam like that at Hadley, the water 
presents a uniform depth throughout the whole length of the dam, and if 
we imagine the current of water to be an infinitude of small streams of uni- 
form depth in contact with one another, each having the same tendency, the 
result must be to produce swellings and contractions throughout the whole 
extent of the dam. When each of these waves strikes the bottom, it gives 
a blow proportioned in force to the body of water falling from the height of 
the dam. Every variation in the depth of the water causes a variation in 
the size and distance of the waves, each of these causes a concussion in pro- 
portionate intensity to the weight of water in it, and in rapidity to their dis- 
tance apart. These effects of falling water should be expected in general 
only on artificial falls, such as mill dams.” Respecting natural falls, he 
says: — “‘ As their faces are rarely vertical, but are broken with angular 
rocks, causing various depths of water on them, and as every variety of 
depth alters the conditions to form the concussive pulsations, there is no co- 
incidence among them, so that the waves of one part strike the bottom in 
the intervals of those of another part, and thus the concussion of one neu- 
tralizes the other. At Hadley, the dam is one right line from bank to bank, 
the bed of the river is solid rock, and the top of the dam is level. The 
waves or pulsations of falling water are uniform, and strike the bottom 
with sychronous concussion from one end of the dam to the other. Itis 
not surprising that the earth should be felt to vibrate at a great distance.” 


RAPIDITY OF THOUGHT, OR NERVOUS ACTION. 


The method of transforming the valuation of time into space by the rapid 
revolution of a cylinder, proposed by Mr. Fizeau, has been applied to the 
mcasurement of the rapidity of nervous impulse. Such a cylinder rotating 
1000 times a second, and divided into 360 degrees, may measure 1-360,- 
000th part of a second; or rotating 1500 times a second, 1-540,000th part 
of a second ; and even this may be subdivided by a microscope, so as to ob- 
tain the ten-millionth or perhaps 100-millionth part of a second. By this 
extreme minuteness of subdivision of time, it is not difficult to measure even 
the rapidity of a nervous impulse. If an electric shock be given to the arm, 
it produces a sensation, and a contraction of the muscles. Hence by noting 
the interval of time between the shock and the contraction, the time oc- 
cupicd by the transmission of the sensation and the action of the brain, how- 
ever quick, will be determined. By trying the experiment with different 


252 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


parts of the body, sensible differences have been observed, the shock applied 
to the thumb being one-thirtieth of a second behind that applied to the 
face ; and this difference pertains to the transmission and not to the action 
of the brain, and hence enables us to eliminate the latter in the experiments. 
In this way it has been found by M. Helmholtz, by whom these experiments 
have been made with the most care, 

1. That sensations are transmitted to the brain at a rapidity of about 
180 feet per second, or at one-fifth the rate of sound ; and this is nearly the 
same in all individuals. 

2. The brain requires one-tenth of a second to transmit its orders to the 
nerves which preside over voluntary motion; but this amount varies much 
in different individuals, and in the same individual at different times, accord- 
ing to the disposition or the condition at the time, and is more regular, the 
more sustained the attention. 

3. The time required to transmit an order to the muscles by the motor 
nerves, is nearly the same as that required by the nerves of sensation to pass 
a sensation ; moreover it passes nearly one-hundredth of a second before the 
muscles are put in motion. 

4. The whole operation requires one and a quarter to two tenths of a 
second. 

Consequently when we speak of an active, ardent mind, or of one that is 
slow, cold or apathetic, it is not a mere figure of rhetoric. — M/. Ule, Revue 
Suisse. 


ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF UNIFORM TIME BY MEANS OF THE TELE- 
GRAPH. 

Mr. J. J. Murphy, at the British Association, communicated a paper con- 
taining a proposal for the establishment of a uniform reckoning of time over 
the world in connection with the telegraph. ‘The paper stated that the 
period, in all probability, was not remote when the telegraph would effect 
an almost instantaneous communication between parts of the world which 
are separated by an extensive arc of longitude, and differ in their solar 
time by several hours. The system which had been introduced all over 
Great Britain of keeping Greenwich time everywhere, could not be applied 
over extensive arcs of longitude. A difference of half an hour between 
solar time and clock time at any place was no inconvenience, but a dif- 
ference of six hours would be much too great. It would be necessary for 
distant places to continue to keep their local solar time; but in order to 
time the receipt and despatch by telegraphic messages it would be necessary 
either to reduce the time of one place to that of any other with which it 
might communicate, or to adopt a uniform reckoning of time for all. We 
have to propose a simple and self-acting method of meeting the require- 
ments of the case. Let every telegraph station that communicated with 
distant stations be furnished with a clock, similar in other respects to a 
common clock, but provided with a double circle of figures on the dial, 
the inner circle being fixed as in a common clock, but the outer one 
capable of being moved round. Let some one meridian, say that of 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 253 
Greenwich, be cliosen, to which all others should be referred. Let every such 
clock throughout the world indicate Greenwich time on the inner or station- 
ary circle of figures, but when the clock is set up at any station, let the outer 
circle be moved round, and so set that while the hour hand shows Green- 
wich time on the inner circle, it may show local solar time on the outer one, 
and let messages be dated in both local and Greenwich time. The perfect 
convenience of this plan was obvious. It reconciled the necessity of keeping 
local time with the advantage of uniform time, and got rid of any trouble in 
reducing the one into the other. The system might be rendered more work- 
able still by abolishing the distinction of east and west longitude, reckon- 
ing all cast or all west from 0 degree to 360 minutes, and by abolishing the 
distinction of a. m. and p. m., reckoning time from midnight to midnight, up 
to twenty-four o’clock. 


SELF--INDICATING BALANCE BAROMETER. 


M. Secchi, of Rome, has recently invented a new construction of barome- 
ter, which pussesses the advantages of not being liable to be broken, of giving 
the readings exact, which Aneroids and others do not, and of recording those 
readings by self-acting mechanism. M. Secchi says that all improvements 
hitherto have been limited to the employment of large tubes to avoid the 
evils of capillary attraction, and to the obtaining of greater exactitude in the 
readings. All attempts to make the instrument graphic — that is to say, self 
acting to record the different variations, and to make the indications more 
minute — have not yet been successful. The principles on which the new 
barometer is constructed will be understood by the following statement : — 
Suppose the cuvette of a barometer to be placed on a table and the glass 
tube so arranged as to admit of its being lifted by hand. The force that will 
be required to lift the tube will be equal to the weight of mercury in the tube, 
or in other words, to the amount of atmospheric pressure exercised on the 
mercury of the instrument. We shall therefore be able to really weigh the 
pressure of the atmosphere by attaching the barometer (the tube only) to 
one end of a balance, and weights to the other ; for it is evident that at every 
change in atmospheric pressure a corresponding increase or decrease in 
weight will have to be made at the other end of the balance to maintain 
equilibrium. ‘To ascertain the value of absolute pressure on a unity of sur- 
face, it will be necessary to take into consideration the weight of the tube, 
and also of the weight of that portion thereof which is immersed in the mer- 
cury contained in the cuvette, and especially the internal sectional area. 
The knowledge of the latter, so far from being an obstacle, is a positive ad- 
vantage in construction; for, by increasing the sectional area, the force that 
actuates the instrument will also be increased, and will consequently permit 
of more exact and more minute readings. If the sectional area be ten squares 
centimetres, and the pressure varies by centimetres in height, the weight 
to be placed at the other end of the balance will be that of nineteen cubical 
centimetres of mercury, or one hundred and thirty-five grammes; while, if 


22 


254 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the sectional area had been equal to one square centimetre only, the weight 
would have been but 13°5 grammes. 

Starting from these observations, M. Secchi adopted the following construc- 
tion for his barometer ; which has been made and used in the observatory 
at Rome. The barometrical tube is attached to one end of a steelyard or 
balanced lever, which carries at the other end a counterbalance weight and a 
pointer, fifteen millimetres, or five-eighth inch diameter, which is reflected in 
a mirror. This mirror also reflects a graduated scale, so that the variation 
of one-tenth of a line of the pointer is indicated by a movement of six lines 
on the reflected image. The writer enumerates the following advantages 
peculiar to his invention :—1. As the atmospheric pressure is weighed, and 
not indicated by the height of the column of mercury, the tube may be con- 
structed of any non-fragile material, such as iron, which does not amalga- 
mate with the mercury, provided the bore be of equal diameter throughout. 
2. By increasing the sectional area of the tube, the additional weight will 
give sufficient motive power to a pencil attached to the other end of the lever 
to mark the variations of atmospheric pressure. 3. By the intervention of 
suitable gearing, the scale of observations may be augmented without incon- 
venience or danger to the exactness of the instrament. 4. The new construc- 
tion is independent of the form of the miniscus, of the purity of mercury, of 
its specific gravity, and of the temperature and difference of gravity peculiar 
to different latitudes, for all these qualities exercise influence upon the volume 
of mercury, and on tne height of the column of mercury in the tube, which 
has to be measured to obtain the weight of atmospheric pressure, whereas, 
with the new instrument the weight is given at once. Another advantage 
of employing iron for barometrical tubes is, that there is no danger to fear 
from the adhesion of air, or moisture, and the mercury may be boiled with- 

ut fear of bursting. Iron barometrical tubes will likewise permit of other 
fluids being employed, and probably advantageously, instead of mercury. 
M. Secchi states that he invariably found his new barometer indicate varia- 
tions of atmospheric pressure before ordinary barometers did so, and that by 
avoiding loss by friction, most exact instruments may be produced. 

It has been suggested that this invention may be applied to the construc- 
tion of audible or danger-signalizing barometers, which, if placed on board a 
ship, would tell the captain and whole crew of the approach of storms; or 
which, if placed in mines, would warn miners and inspectors of the presence 
of fire-damp, as well as indicate its precise locality. For this purpose it 
would be only necessary to employ a weighing barometer, the pointing of 
which was composed of some suitable conducting material, but insulated 
from the rest of the instrument. The pointer should be in communication 
with one of the poles of an electro-magnetic battery. The dial, over the face 
of which the pointer would have to travel, should be composed of glass, or 
other suitable non-conducting material, with metallic points inserted at those 
gradations, which indicate dangerous variations of atmospheric pressure. 
These points would have to be placed in communication with the other pole 
of the battery. The reader will readily sce by this arrangement, that when 
the pressure of the atmosphere shows the presence of danger, either at sea 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 255 


from storms or squalls, or in mines from the accumulation of carburetted 
hydrogen gas, the pointer will come in contact with the metallic danger-point 
in the face of the dial, and so complete the electric circuit which would have 
the effect, by the intervention of the ordinary or well-known apparatus of 
sounding an alarum, either by ringing a bell or exploding gunpowder. The 
arrangements may be varied to suit the particular case, by making the dial 
of some conducting material and the danger-points of non-conducting mate- 
rial, so that it would be the breaking of the electric circuit that would give 
the alarm. In the case of ships the barometer might be placed in the captain’s 
cabin with an alarum there, and another on deck near the wheel. While in 
mines a barometer should be placed in every gallery with an alarum to warn 
the miners who might be there ; and it should also be in communication with 
an alarum and corresponding dial indicator at the mouth of the pit, so that the 
overlooker might at all times know the state of the atmosphere in every part 
of the mine, and be warned of the first approach of danger. 

Guynne’s Barometer. —This new invention consists of an inverted glass 
syphon, sealed at one end and open at the other, partly filled with mercury, 
and suspended, so that the two limbs of the syphon form the arms of a bal- 
ance. The invention consists chiefly in supporting or balancing the instru- 
ment on points, pivots, or knife-edges, or suspending it by a flexible material, 
as a silken cord, a fine flexible steel spring, &c., which allows the instrument 
to vibrate or oscillate freely, and a pointer or hand fixed to the instrument, 
and moving in front of an index or dial, shows by its motion the most 
minute change in the atmosphere. Any increase in the pressure of the at- 
mosphere forces the mercury towards the scaled end of the tube, giving a 
prependerance to that side of the syphon, and, consequently, motion to the 
instrument; while a decrease in the pressure produces an effect in the 
opposite direction. A great many varieties in the arrangement of the in- 
strument may be made. 


CHRONOMETER COMPASS. 


By means of this instrument, which is a combination of a universal dial and 
chronometer, the inventor, Mr. Ralph Reeder, of Cincinnati, claims to be 
enabled to take any hcrizontal bearing, in any latitude, at any time of the 
day, by bringing the shadow of the gnomon to its proper place. ‘The gno- 
mon revolves by means of the chronometer, so as to perform one revolution 
in twenty-four hours; and when the instrument is levelled and elevated to 
true latitude, and adjusted at the meridian, the gnomon points steadily to 
the sun, which it follows in its course. And conversely, if the instrument be 
levelied and elevated to the latitude of the place, and turned round horizon- 
tally till the gnomon points to the sun, or till the shadow falls on the proper 
point, it will be adjusted to the meridian, and an angle or bearing may be 
laid off by a horizontal gradual motion. It will also solve practically all 
the problems which can be solved by any armillary sphere, or by spherical 
trigonometry, so far as its circles and its motions extend. Thus, the decli- 
nation and the time given, it will show the altitude and the latitude at any 
hour and at any place. ‘The instrument is constructed on correct mathe- 


256 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


matical principles, and will be useful in high latitudes where the needle 
traverses badly. Its accuracy depends on the correctness of the chronom- 
eter, by which the index, or gnomon, is moved, and upon its adjustment to 
the meridian of the place. 


ABBOT’S HOROMETER. 


The following is a description of a new nautical and astronomical in- 
strument recently invented by the Rev. Amos Abbot, a missionary con- 
nected with the American Board: 

A plane metallic hemisphere of ten-inch radius, with a graduated are and 
an orthographic projection of lines of latitude divided by dots into minutes 
of time, and numbered from six o’clock towards the arc for the a. M., and 
from the arc for the p. M., is the foundation. Moving from the centre of this 
projection is an index arm, like a quadrant, with a Vernier, reading to half 
minutes, and upon this arm, sliding in a groove, and at right angles to it is 
a bar, graduated for a scale of altitudes and comprehending the appropriate 
corrections. This scale-bar, of course, moves with the index arm, and is 
always perpendicular to it, and across it a plane glass, with fine lines upon 
its surface, is made to slide so that it may be set to any given altitude. By 
this simple combination of parts, the time from an altitude of the sun, moon, 
planet, or star, is readily worked. Latitude, by various means, is deter- 
mined; a lunar distance is cleared; azimuth, without a compass, is found ; 
and, in short, all spherical problems are solved by inspection. The plan of 
the instrument is obvious to a person familiar with spherical trigonometry, 
correct, and the exccution of it so nice, that its accuracy is easily demon- 
strated by examples. 


CAVENDY’'S NAUTICAL TRIPOD. 


An instrument for obtaining nautical observations in thick weather, in- 
vented by Capt. Cavendy, of New York, consists of a metaliic tube, sup- 
ported by a tripod on a universal hinge, so as to keep it in a vertical posi- 
tion, with its point constantly to the zenith. Through this tube the position 
of the sun is ascertained at meridian, and by the angle obtained between it 
and the zenith the basis for calculating correct observations is obtained, 
while the use of the quadrant to give correct observations would require a 
clear horizon. This instrument is highly commended. 


CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONDITIONS OF 
THUNDER STORMS. 


Mr. John Wise, the eminent American ronaut, has recently published, in 
the New York Tribune, the following very curious observations on the 
physical aspect of thunder storms, which have been made by him from time 
to time during his numerous balloon ascensions : 

A Storm viewed from above the clouds has the appearance of ebullition. The 
upper surface of the cloud is bulged upward and outward, and has the re- 
semblance of a vast sea of snow boiling and upheaving from internal con- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 257 


vulsion. The view is from a point where the atmosphere is clear, around 
and above. Immediately above the storm the air is not so cold as in a place 
where there is no cloud nor storm beneath. The falling of the rain can be 
heard above the cloud, making a noise like a waterfall over a precipice. The 
thunder heard above the cloud is not loud, and the flashes of lightning ap- 
pear like streaks of intensely-white fire on a surface of white vapor. 

A Side View of a Storm — observed when it is a mile or two off and some- 
what lower than the point of observation — presents in form the shape of an 
hour-glass ; the picture of a waterspout also gives a good outline of its 
shape. In this well-defined form it moves along over the earth. When the 
storm is so small that you can embrace its whole bulk at a single glance — 
which you can do when you are several miles off and a little more elevated 
than the meteor —it looks as though it were trailing its lower base along on 
the surface of the earth, and it has an individuality which cannot be recog- 
nized when viewed from the ground. Although the storm is being moved 
along by the same current of wind that is drifting along the observer, it will 
be deflected from that course by its encountering a mountain ridge or a deep 
valley, just in proportion to the amount of lateral force or obstruction it sus- 
tains in such cases ; and then the observer in a balloon may continue onward, 
while the storm may be moving off at right angles with his route. These 
lateral views of storms are very grand and imposing as they rush along by 
an elevated observer. 

A Closer View from the Side of a Storia, and partly in it, reveals a very in- 
teresting physical aspect. The one now described occurred on the 3d of 
June, 1852, during a balloon excursion from Portsmouth, Ohio. The storm 
was kedging up the Ohio River, about fifty miles above Portsmouth, and 
where the river courses nearly north and south, while I was sailing from 
west to east. Moving at nearly right angles with the storm, soon brought 
us together, and the country below being dense forest, the meteor’s company 
was preferred to a reception in the woods. It was easy to keep out of the 
vortex of the storm from an abundant supply of ballast aboard of the air- 
ship ; hence a point in its wake was the station of observing its action, and 
having learned that the shape of storms was like two cones with their ends 
joined, with a wind driving in below and rishing out again at its top, you 
might sail with impunity in its wake, provided you kept midway between 
the upper and lower cloud. When getting too low in its wake there was a 
tendency to rock the balloon into the vortex, but this was countervailed by 
going up near the out-spreading cloud. In this position the air is cold, and 
vou are in the shadow of the upper cloud, unless you sink low enough where 
the sun may reach you under the overlapping cloud. Although the sun was 
shining on me, the rain and small hail were rattling on the balloon. A rain- 
bow was standing in and against the body of the meteor, or rather a pris- 
matically colored arch the shape of a horse-shoe was reflected against it, and 
as the point of observation changed laterally and perpendicularly, the per- 
spective of this golden grotto changed its hues and forms. Above and 
behind this arch there was going on the most terrific thunder, but no zig-zag 
lightning was perceptible, only bright flashes like explosions of “ Roman 


2a" 


258 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


candles” in fireworks. Occasionally there would be a zig-zag explosion in 
the cloud immediately below, and the thunder therefrom sounded like a 
“fou de joic” of a rifle corps. Once an orange-colored wave of light 
seemed to full from the upper to the lower cloud, and right over the balloon, 
but no sensible effect was produced by its contact. This was “still light- 
ning.’”’ There appeared all the time while in the storm electrical action going 
on in the balloon, such as expansion, tremulous tension, attraction by lift- 
ing papers out of the car ten feet below the balloon, and hugging them to its 
body for a moment and then letting them drop off again; but as I had 
no instruments I can only relate the manifestations of electricity in this 
case. While, as stated above, a distant view of storms is imposing and 
grand, a closer view of a great storm such as this Ohio metcor, is truly sub- 
lime; although the rushing noise below and in its midst, is almost appal- 
- ling. 

The Quantity and Quality of Thunder seem to be in proportion to the mag- 
nitude of the storm. A storm may be so limited in size as that there will 
be no electrical explosions. In this case the developed electricity can be 
dissipated and taken up by the immediately surrounding cloud formation. 
April and May showers are an exemplification of this fact. When the storm 
is of great magnitude the central portion of its top becomes surcharged with 
electricity, because the surrounding cloud-formed vapor cannot conduct 
away silently as fast as it is developed, and hence explosions must ensue, 
such as noticed in the Ohio meteor, with terrific and rapid discharges of 
thunder ; and moreover, the drops of rain that are formed from this sur- 
charged vapor of the upper cloud also become redundantly electrified, and 
although they fall quietly down through the intervening clear air which is a 
non-conductor, as soon as they reach the lower cloud, which is negatively 
electrified, they give up their surplus —silently if the capacity of this cloud 
is sufficient to take it up, but explosively if the cloud is insufficient; and it 
may fly off laterally until dissipated, or it may glance downward to the 
earth, rending whatever it encounters before its diffusion in the earth. The 
physical facts here stated are as I saw them; the rationale of explosion is 
confirmed from the known play of electricity as divulged by the common 
electrical machine experiments. 

A Storm Viewed from within its Caldron— that is, from within its vortex, 
where the cloud-vapor is driving upward to where it spreads out —is rather 
a terrible thing, and the very fact that you are caught up in the midst of one 
of nature’s laboratory furnaces makes you feel resigned, and determined to 
look to the end thereof. It may be only terrible because we are not used to 
it; nevertheless, I would not like to enter one again for observation until 
science dictates, without a doubt, that we are not liable to annihilation or 
serious harm. The one now to be described is the result of a trip in the 
midst of a local storm of so limited dimensions as to have no electrical ex- 
plosions during my passage of nineteen minutes within its bosom. This 
storm originated nearly over the town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 17th 
of June, 1843. I entered it just as it was forming. The nucleus cloud 
above was just spreading out as I entered the vortex unsuspectingly. I was 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 259 


hurled into it so quick that I had no opportunity of viewing its surroundings 
outside, and must therefore confine this relation to its internal action. On 
entering it, the motion of the air swung the balloon to and fro, as also around 
ina circle, anda dismal howling noise accompanied this unpleasant and 
sickening motion; and in a few minutes thereafter was heard the falling of 
heavy rain below, resembling in sound a cataract. The color of the cloud, 
internally, was of a milky hue, somewhat like a dense body of steam in the 
open air, and the cold was so sharp that my beard became bushy with hoar- 
frost. As there were no electrical explosions in this storm during my in- 
carceration, it might have been borne comfortably enough but for the sea- 
sickness occasioned by the agitated air-storm. Still, I could hear and see, 
and even smell, everything close by and around. Little pellets of snow 
(with an icy nucleus when broken) were pattering profusely around me in 
promiscuous and confused disorder, and slight blasts of wind seemed oc- 
casionally to penetrate this cloud laterally, notwithstanding there was an 
upmoving column of wind all the while. This upmoving stream would 
carry the balloon up to a point in the upper cloud, where its force was ex- 
pended by the outspreading of its vapor, whence the balloon would be 
thrown outward, fall down some distance, then be drawn into the vortex, 
again to be carried upward to perform the same revolution until I had gone 
through the cold furnace seven or eight times; and all this time the smell 
of sulphur, or what is now termed ozone, was perceptible, and I was sweat- 
ing profusely from some cause unknown to me, unless it was from undue 
excitement. The last time of descent in this cloud brought the balloon 
through its base, where, instead of the pellets of snow, there was encountered 
a drenching rain, with which I came down into a clear field, and the storm 
passed on. This storm may have been accompanied with electrical dis- 
charges after it left me, as it had the appearance of increase as it departed. 
I may here mention that the people in the neighborhood informed me next 
day thai it deposited two parallel trains of hail some distance apart. I have 
frequently since and before this occurrence witnessed storms while up in the 
air, but a great distance off, sometimes four and five of them at the same 
time in different parts of the heavens, and always in the months of May and 
June, and never accompanied with electrical explosions when they were 
small in dimensions. 

Thunder Storms Viewed from the Earth, have not the characteristic shapes 
lineated to the eye of the observer, as when viewed sidewise from above. 
Neither does one discover the two plates of clouds joined in conic sections. 
The upper cloud can be seen rolling outward, and black clouds below cen- 
tering inward, but the whole seems to be nearly blended in one solid mass. 
By close observation and practice it will soon be deduced that there are two 
plates of clouds, even as viewed from the earth. In watching clouds care- 
fully from the earth, it will be observed that vivid zig-zag flashes and heavy 
peals are followed by copious showers. The rain drops, being positively 
charged from the upper cloud, drop through a clear atmosphere, which is a 
non-conductor, into the lower cloud, which is negatively electrified ; and if 
_ the shower is too copious for the lower cloud’s capacity to absorb it silently, 


260 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


explosions must follow, in the same way as the Leyden jar explodes spon- 
taneously when surcharged to overflowing. Were it not for the lower cloud 
and its negative condition, the surcharged drops of rain would scintillate 
their electrical fire as they touched the earth. 

Thunder-storms rage more violently as they pass over forests and moist 
places, and were it not for the deposition of rain as they pass along their 
track, would exhibit a parched trail. A long drought is adverse to the gen- 
eration of a thunder-storm, and on the other hand a moist earth is promotive 
of one. 

Thunder-storms are deflected from their courses, as well as retardéd in 
their movement, by friction on the earth. Ascending from the earth with a 
balloon in the rear of a storm, and mounting up a thousaud feet above it, 
the balloon will soon override the storm, and may descend in advance of it. 
I have experienced this several times. 


ON THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND. 


Professor Hennessy, at the last meeting of the Britith Association, stated, 
as the result of his observations with an improved annemometer, that the 
wind rarely blows in a perfectly horizontal direction. The deviations from 
that direction, although usually very small, are sometimes very remarkable, 
and follow each other in such a way, especially during strong breezes, as to 
indicate a species of undulatory motion in the wind. 


ON THE SPIRALITY OF MOTION IN WHIRLWINDS AND TORNADOES. 


The following important paper was read before the American Association 
for 1856, by the late W. C. Redfield, and subsequently published in Silli- 
man’s journal. 

1, An aggregated spiral movement around a smaller axial space, consti- 
tutes the essential portion of whirlwinds and tornadoes. 

2. The course of the spiral rotation, whether to the right or left, is, one 
and the same in this respect throughout the entire whirling body, so long as 
its entegrity is preserved. But the oblique inclination which the spiral 
movement also has to the plane of the horizon, is in opposite directions as 
regards the interior and exterior portions of the revolving mass. Thus, in 
the outwerd portion of the whirlwind the tendency of this movement is ob- 
liquely downward, where the axis is vertical ; but in the interior portion, 
the inclination or tendency of the spiral movement is upward. ‘This fact 
explains the ascensive effects which are observed in tornadoes and in more 
diminutive whirlwinds. 

3. Owing to the increased pressure of the circumjacent air in approaching 
the earth’s surface, the normal course of the gradually descending move- 
ment, in a symmetric whirlwind, is that of an involuted or closing spiral; 
while the course of the interior ascending movement of rotation, is that of 
an evolved or opening spiral. Hence, the horizontal areas of the higher por- 
tions of the whirl exceed greatly those of its lower portions. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 261 


4. The area of the ascending spiral movement in the vortex, as it leaves 
the earth’s surface, is by far the smallest portion of the whirling body ; for 
the reason that the rotation here is proportionally more active and intense, be- 
ing impelled by the aggregated pressure and momentum of the more outward 
portion of the whirlwind as it converges from its larger area, on all sides by 
_increasingly rapid motion, into the smaller area of ascending rotation.* 

That this interior portion of the whirl resembles an inverted hollow cone, or 
column, with quiescent and more rarefied air at its absolute centre, may be 
inferred from the observations which have been made in the axial portions 
of the great cyclones. Into this axial area of the tornado the bodies forced 
upward by the vortex cannot fall, but will be discharged outward, from the 
ascending whirl. The columnar profile of this axial area sometimes be- 
comes visible, as in the water spouts so called. 

5. Accessions caused by circumjacent contact and pressure are constantly 
accruing to the whirling body, so long as its rotative energy is maintained. 
A correlative diffusion from its ascending portion must necessarily take 
place, towards its upper horizon; and this is often manifested by the great 
extent or accumulation of cloud which results in this manner from the ac- 
tion of the tornado. In other words, there is a constant discharge from the 
whirling body in the direction of least resistance. 

6. The spirality of the rotation and its inclination to the horizon, in the 
great portion of the whirl which is exterior to its ascending area, is not or- 
dinarily subject to direct observation. Nor is the outline or body of the 
more outward portion of the whirlwind at all visible, otherwise than in its 
effects. 

7. In aqueous vortices the axial spiralities of the exterior and interior por- 
tions are in reverse direction to those in the atmosphere, the descending 
spiral being nearest to the axis of the vortex. Hence, lighter bodies and 
even bubbles of air are often forced downward in the water, in the manner in 
which heavier bodies are forced upwards in the atmosphere. 

The foregoing is simply a statement of results which I have derived from 
along course of observation and inquiry. It does not include the partial 
‘and imperfect exhibitions of whirlwind action, which often occur; nor the 
various movements and phenomena which are collaterally associated with 
tornadoes and whirlwinds, some of which are of much significance. 


* The law of increment in the velocity of the whirlwind, as it gradually converges 
into smaller areas by its spiral involution, is that which pertains to other bodies 
when revolving around interior foci towards which they are being gradually drawn 
or pressed nearer and nearer, in their involute course ; the line of focal or centri- 
petal pressure, thus sweeping equal areas in equal times, at whatever diminution of 
distance from the centre ; except as the velocity may be affected in degree by the 
resistance of other bodies. Such resistance is of little effect in a tornado, because its 
revolying mass is mainly above all ordinary obstacles, such as orchards and forests, 
into which the spirally descending and accelerated blast, near the contracted ex- 
tremity of the inverted and truncated cone of the whirl penetrates with constant 
freshness and intensity of force ; already acquired in the higher and unobstructed 
region. 


262 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ON THE WARPED SURFACES OF GROUND OCCURRING IN ROAD 
EXCAVATIONS AND EMBANKMENTS. 


The following is an abstract of a paper read before the American Associa- 
tion, at Montreal, by Professor W. M. Gillespie, of Schenectady, N. Y. 

To determine the amount of earth necessary to be moved in making 
the “ cuts” and “fills” of roads, engineers take “ cross-sections,”’ or “ pro- 
files,” of the ground at right angles to the line of road, at convenient in- 
tervals, and then calculate by various methods, usually near approxima- 
tions, the volume included between each pair of these cross-sections. The 
distances apart at which these cross-sections are taken, are determined by 
the engineer according to the nature of the ground; his aim being that 
there shall not merely be no abrupt change of height between each pair 
of these cross-sections, but that the surface from one to the other shall vary 
uniformly ; gradually passing, for example, from a small to a great degree 
of slope, or from a slope to the right into a slope to the left, without any 
sudden variation at any one place. 

The surface fulfilling this condition, since it is everywhere straight in 
some direction, is evidently a ruled surface ; and since the extreme profiles 
are seldom parallel, it will be a warped or twisted surface. 

Our engineers have been accustomed to consider these surfaces as not 
admitting of precise calculation, but only of a degree of approximation 
varying with the nearness of the cross-sections. The object of this paper 
is to examine the correctness of this assumption. It will therefore have 
two parts: firstly, a discussion of the precise nature of the surface; and 
secondly, an investigation of a formula applying to it. 

I. What sort of a warped surfuce is the one in question ; that is, what is its 
mode of generation ? 

To determine this, we must examine what the engineer means when he 
says that the ground “‘ varies uniformly ” from the place at which he stands 
to the place at which he decides it will be proper to take the next cross- 
section ; whether he means that the ground is straight lengthwise, or straight 
crosswise —straight in the direction the road runs, or straight at right angles 
to that direction. . 

Probably few engineers ask themselves this question in so many words ; 
but it would seem that the latter, or straightness crosswise, is the more likely 
to be what is meant, for the reason that any deviation from straightness in 
that direction, at right angles to the line along which we look, is much 
more easily seen than in the other direction. We can therefore much more 
readily determine whether the surface of the road is straight or curved from 
side to side than from end to end. In geometrical language the former 
surface (which we will call No. 1) is generated by a straight line resting 
on the two straight lines which join the extremities of the two profiles, 
and moving parallel to their planes, or perpendicular to the axis of the 
road. 

This surface is a “‘ Hyperbolic Paraboloid.” 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 263 


The latter surface (No. 2) is generated by a straight line resting on the 
two profiles, and moving parallel to the vertical plane which passes through 
the axis of the road. It also is a hyperbolic paraboloid, though a different 
one from the former. 

The French engineers adopt the latter hypothesis. We have seen, how- 
ever, that the former is the more probable one. 

But fortunately the difference is really very slight; for a very small 
change in the latter hypothesis will make its result identical with that of 
the former. Conceive the straight line which rests on the two profiles to 
move on them in such a way as always to divide them proportionally. The 
surface thus generated (No. 3) is identical with No. 1. 

This last conceptien is also more probably correct than No. 2—even if 
we suppose the engineer to consider longitudinal straightness — since he is 
more likely to extend his imagination from all parts of one profile to all 
parts of the other, than in lines perpendicular to the profile on which he 
stands. 

II. We shall therefore now proceed to investigate the content of a solid, 
bounded on one face by a warped surface, generated on the first hypothesis 
—the other faces being planes. 

We will take the case of an Excavation; that of an embankment being 
the same inverted. 

We will begin by considering the sides of the excavation to be vertical ; 
and will afterwards discuss the more usual form. 

[The mathematical discussion is here omitted. The result of the integra- 
tion shows the required volume of the solid to be expressed by this simple 
and symmetrical formula : 


[(6+3>)g+4)+0+%) G+) 


In it J is the length of the solid; b and D’ are the breadths of its two ends ; 
g and fh the side depths at one end; and g’ and /’ those at the other end. 

It is next shown that the expression for the volume obtained by treating 
the solid as a prismoid can be transformed into the above formula. | 

We thus arrive at the practical conclusion that the familiar “ Prismoidal 
formula” can be applied with perfect accuracy to such solids, having one of their 
faces a warped surface, generated as in our first, or third, hypothesis. 

The general adoption of these views would enable beginners to economize 
much time and labor, since they would no longer feel themselves under the 
necessity of taking their cross sections so near together that the ground 
between them should be approximately plane, but could take them as far 
apart as the ground “varied uniformly,” no matter how much or how far 
that might be. 


MOLECULAR AGGREGATION OF CRYSTALLINE SOLIDS. 


Robert Mallett, the well-known English physicist, in a recent publication, 
affirms that in the “molecular aggregation of crystalline solids, the crystals 
always arrange and group themselves with their principal axes in lines per- 


264 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pendicular to the cooling or heating surfaces of the solid; that is, in the 
lines of direction of the heat wave.” He assumes, that as a gun, in cooling, 
radiates heat from the centre outward, in all directions, the particles arrange 
themselves in radial lines, ready to be separated on the application of a com- 
paratively slight force, thus possessing least strength in the direction where 
it is most wanted. He illustrates by the following experiment, which might 
be readily tried : “If a cylinder of lead, some four or five inches long, and 
of about the same diameter, be cast around a cylindrical bar of iron about 
an inch and a half in diameter, and considerably longer, the lead becomes 
rapidly consolidated by the contact of cold material interiorly as well as ex- 
teriorly, will have a tolerably homogeneous structure, and may be cut into, 
beaten out, etc., without exhibiting any trace of crystallization. But if one 
of the ends of the central bar be heated red-hot, and time be allowed for the 
heat to be conducted along into the interior of the lead, and thence conducted 
outward in all directions till the heat is nearly up to the melting point of 
lead —say to about 550” Fahr.— and the lead be now sharply struck with a 
hammer, the whole mass will be found to have a crystalline structure, all the 
principal axes of the long thin crystals radiating regularly from the centre; 
and by a few blows from the hammer the mass will separate and fall to 
pieces, so complete are the planes of separation.” 

As a consequence of this law, it is inferred that every abrupt change in 
the form of the exterior of any casting, is attended by an equally sudden 
change in the arrangement of the crystals, accompanied with one or more 
planes of weakness in the mass. The small cast iron cylinder of the hy- 
draulic press used in raising the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, failed under 
the immense pressure, until another form was substituted with a bottom 
more rounded ; and the theory laid down, and to a certain extent established 
by this writer, would seem to indicate that when angular forms are ab- 
solutely required in castings exposed to great strains, it might be expedient 
to cast the parts in rounded forms, and then turn or plane them to the forms 
required. ° 


ILLUSTRATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 


Mr. Trachzel, in a recent lecture on drainage, before the London Society 
of Arts, illustrated his remarks by means of a tin vessel, fitted with two 
spouts. The bottom of the vessel represented what he termed the “ water 
table,” or the formation which prevented the water sinking lower, and the 
two spouts represented drains at different depths. Having filled the vessel 
with pebbles, he poured in some water, which, descending to the bottom, 
ran out of the lower spout or drain. Stopping the lower spout, the water 
ran out of the upper drain. In the same manner, he said, water descended 
through the soil as low as it could, and hence the importance of deep drain- 
ing. Water did not by instinct run into the drains, but saturated the soil, 
and to be carried away drains must be made at a proper depth. A three 
feet drain would drain the land to the depth of two feet six inches only, 
while the root of wheat required a considerably greater depth, running im 
favorable situations to the depth of four feet, and as deep, in fact, as the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 265 


plant itself was high. From what he had described, it would be seen that 
the land must contain an immense amount of water before the shallow drain 
would operate. Where there were two sets of drains, one shallow and the 
other deep, the shallow drains would be useless except to introduce air into 
the soil. It should, however, be observed that if the soil were sufficiently 
deep, drains might be placed at too great a depth. Since drainage had be- 
come so general, millers in many parts of the country complained of the 
want of water. ‘This was owing to the level of the water being brought to a 
point at which it was useless to fill the ponds. Draining one field, also, 
would have the effect of draining the neighboring land, and if there were a 
large area of the same kind of land, gravelly soil, for instance, one large 
drain would suffice to drain the land for twenty miles round. The distance 
at which drains should be made, must depend upon the nature of the soil. 
If the soil were loose and gravelly, they might make the drains as far apart 
as they chose; but if the land were stiff and close, then they should make 
the drains as near together as they could afford. 


ON THE VESICULAR THEORY OF MIST. 


A paper has recently been presented to the French Academy by the Abbe 
Railland, which denies the truth of the vesicular vapor theory concerning 
clouds, and contends that the phenomenon in question depends on minute 
divisions. As gold, when beaten into leaf, falls slowly, so the more the sur- 
faces of water are increased, the more slowly will the water fall. The resist- 
ance of air toa drop divided into a thousand parts, is a thousand times 
greater than toa single drop. Hence clouds are borne up by the friction of the 
atmosphere. That clouds should consist of vesicular vapor is, in the abbe’s 
opinion, simply impossible ; for if it were vesicular, it would be condensed ; 
and if air were contained within the vesicles, the viscosity of the husk or shell 
would have to be something very different from that of water. 

M. de Tessan, an eminent French meteorologist, has also published con- 
clusions to the same effect. 


ESTIMATION OF SPECIFIC GRAVITY. 


M.M. Vogel and Reischauer recommend the use of a flask with a flat- 
tened bulb for the purpose of estimating the specific gravity of liquids that 
are much affected by change of temperature. With such a flask the equali- 
zation of temperature is effected with much greater facility than in a flask 
of the ordinary form. This flask is filled and emptied by means of a pipette 
of equal capacity, with a long thin beak. The neck of the flask is graduated, 
each division representing a known fraction of the volume of the flask. By 
this means it is not requisite to remove any liquid from the flask by filter 
paper. In order to derive full advantage from the shape of the flask, it is 
necessary, on account of the uncertainty of reading off, that the neck of the 
flask should be very narrow, otherwise the advantage in observing the tem- 
perature is lost, especially in the case of liquids, ‘whose expansion is not 
widely different from that of water. 


23 


266 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


CURIOUS PHENOMENA OF ICE. 


At the Montreal meeting of the Amcrican Association, Professor Henry 
presented a paper entitled, ‘‘ Some Phenomena of Ice.” 

In the commencement he stated, that if anything strange or curious occurs 
in any part of the country, the Smithsonian Institution was quite sure to hear 
of it, and in this way more questions were propounded to its officers than 
wise men could always answer. A year ago last winter, on a very cold day, . 
a countryman called upon him and stated that he had come twenty miles to 
show him something which he thought very extraordinary. The article was 
a common tin milk-pan filled with frozen water. On the top of the ice, ris- 
ing in its centre, was a strange formation, created without apparent cause, 
consisting of a crystal of ice protruding in a direction oblique to the general 
surface, in shape something like an isosceles triangle, with its sides slightly 
curved and corrugated, and its centre hollow. 'The countryman stated that 
the pan of water had stood in a cold entry way over night, where it had not 
been disturbed or agitated in freezing, and he desired to know what had 
caused it to assume this remarkable form, shooting out a pyramid from its 
centre. 

Professor Henry was unable at the time to answer satisfactorily, but had 
a drawing made of the object, and laid it aside for future investigation. 
Last winter he received another communication, making inquiries in relation 
to extraordinary workings of ice and the ground which took place at that 
time. eflecting upon the latter phenomenon, an explanation of the milk- 
pan curiosity also occurred to him. It was well known that, in the process 
of the solidification of melted metals, and the freezing of water, the crystals 
are produced in the direction of the surface from which the heat escapes. In 
the freezing of the water in a vessel of the milk-pan shape, the crystals ran 
across in nearly horizontal lines, crossing each other at an angle of sixty de- 
grees. The water freezing first from the sides and bottom of the vessel, left 
in the centre and top a triangular space, which the yet unfrozen but still ex- 
panding water found too small for it. This unfrozen water was forced up 
by hydrostatic pressure, above the frozen surface surrounding it, and held by 
capillary attraction in this position, until its edges became a ring, or rather 
a corrugated base section of the future triangular pyramid. When this be- 
came frozen, the process of solidifying, still progressing below, continued to 
force up the water, until another and another section was raised, and the 
column entirely completed. 

Water in the act of congealing expands; but after it has once been frozen 
into ice, it follows the law of all solids, contracting with cold and expanding 
with heat. Indeed it has been proven to shrink even more than any other 
solid. This explains the cracking of ice on the lakes, with loud explosions, 
in very cold weather — the ice shrinking and parting. The cracks always 
occur in the place of least resistance, as, for instance, in the narrowest part 
of the body of water frozen over. The professor stated further, that the 
erystals formed on the surface of large bodies of water in the process of 
freezing were nearly perpendicular, the coating surface being that exposed to 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 267 


the cold winds. This was easily seen as the ice decayed from exposure to 
the sun or south wind, when it breaks to pieces all small columns, the crys- 
tals separating cach from the other. When ice shrinks and cracks, the 
edges fall down upon the water, forcing the latter up between them. This 
water, in freezing, expands, and then finds the fissure too small to accom- 
modate its increased bulk,—the consequence of which is, that a ridge is 
thrown up. ‘The same effect is increased by the subsequent expansion con- 
sequent on the occurrence of warm weather, crushing ihe newly-formed ice 
to heaps or mounds. 


ON THE PLASTICITY OF ICE. 


Mr. James Thomson, in a paper on the above subject before the British 
Association, Dublin, commenced by stating that to Professor James Forbes 
is to be attributed the discovery that the motion of glaciers down their 
valleys depends on a plastic or viscous quality of the ice. He (Mr. Thom- 
son) had formed a theory to explain the nature of this plasticity, and the 
manner in which it originates. He had been led to his speculations on this 
subject from a previous theoretical deduction at which he had arrived, 
namely, that the freezing point of water, or the’ melting point of ice, must 
vary with the pressure to which the water or the ice is subjected, the tempe- 
rature of the freezing point being lowered as the pressure is increased. His 
theory on that matter led to the conclusion that the lowering of the freezing 
peint for one additional atmosphere of pressure must be 0:0075° centigrade, 
and that the lowering of the freezing point corresponding to other pressures 
must be proportional to the additional pressure above one atmosphere. The 
phenomena which he thus predicted, in anticipation of direct observations, 
were afterwards fully established by experiments made by his brother, Prof. 
William Thomson, of which an account was published in the “ Proceedings 
of the Royal Socieiy of Edinburgh for Feb. 1850.” Having thus laid down 
as a basis the principle of the lowering of the freezing point of water by 
pressure, Mr. Thomson proceeded to offer his explanation, derived from it, 
of the plasticity of ice at the freezing point, as follows: If to a mass of ice at 
0° centigrade, which may be supposed, for the present, to be slightly porous, 
and to contain small quantities of liquid water diffused through its substance, 
forces tending to change its form be applied, whatever portions of it may 
thereby be subjected to compression will instantly have their melting point 
lowered so as to. be below their existing temperature of 0° centigrade. 
Melting of those portions will therefore set in throughout their substance, 
and this will be accompanied by a fall of temperature in them, on account 
of the cold evolved in the liquefaction. The liquefied portions being sub- 
jected to squeezing of the compressed mass in which they originate, will 
spread themselves out through the pores of the general mass, by dispersion 
from the regions of greatest to those of least fluid pressure. Thus, the fluid 
pressure is relieved in those portions in which the compression and lique- 
faction of the ice had set in, accompanied by the lowering of temperature. 
On the removal of this cause of liquidity, the fluid pressure, namely, the 
cold, which had been evolved in the compressed parts of the ice and water, 


268 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


freezes the water again in new positions, and thus a change of form, or plas- 
tic yielding of the mass of ice to the applied pressures, has occurred. ‘The 
newly-formed ice is at first free from the stress of the applied forces, but the 
yielding of one part always leaves some other part exposed to the pressure, 
and that part, in its turn, melts and falls in temperature ; and, on the whole, 
a continual succession goes on, of pressures being applied to particular parts 
— liquefaction occurring in those parts accompanied by evolution of cold,— 
dispersion of the water so produced in such directions as will relieve its pres- 
sure, and re-congelation, by the cold previously evolved, of the water on its 
being relieved from this pressure. The cycle of operations then begins again, 
for the parts re-congealed, after having been meited, must, in their turn, 
throuzh the yielding of other parts, reecive pressures from the applied forces, 
thereby to be again liquefied, and to proceed through successive operations 
as before. The succession of these processes must continue as long as the 
external forces tending to change of form remain applied to the mass of 
porous ice permeated by minute quantities of liquid water. The ice is thus 
shown to be incapable of opposing a permanent resistance to the pressures, 
and to be subjected to gradual changes of form while they act on it; or, in 
other words, it has been shown to be possessed of the quality of plasticity. 
In the foregoing, I have supposed the ice under consideration to be porous, 
and to contain small quantities of liquid water diffused through its substance. 
Porosity and permeation by liquid water are generally understood, from the 
results of observations, and from numerous other reasons, to. be normal con- 
ditions of glacier ice. It is not, however, necessary for the purposes of my 
explanation of the plasticity of ice at the freezing point, that the ice 
should be, at the outset, in this condition; for, even if we commence with 
the consideration of a mass of ice perfectly free from porosity, and free from 
particles of liquid water diffused through its substanee, and if we suppose 
it to be kept in an atmosphere at or above 0° centigrade, then, as soon as 
pressure is applied to it, pores occupied by liquid water must instantly be 
formed in the compressed parts, in accordance with the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the explanation which I have proposed — the lowering, namely, of 
the freezing or melting point by pressure, and the cognate fact, that ice can- 
not exist at 0° centigrade under a pressure exceeding that of the atmos- 
phere. I would further wish to make it distinctly understood, that no part 
of the ice, even if supposed at the outset to be solid, or free from porosity, 
can resist being permeated by the water squeezed against it from such parts 
as may be directly subjected to the pressure; because, the very fact of that 
water being forced against any portions of the ice supposed to be solid, will 
instantly subject them to pressure, and so will cause melting to set in 
throughout thcir substance, thereby reducing them immediately to the porous 
condition. Thus it is a matter of indifference, as to whether we commence 
with the supposition of a mass of porous or of solid ice. Mr. Thomson then 
referred to an experiment made by Prof. Christie, late Secretary to the 
Royal Society, showing the plasticity of ice in small hand specimens, and 
also to more recent experiments by Prof. Tyndall to the same effect, and 
very interesting on account of the striking way in which they exhibit the 


x NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 269 


phenomena. He also stated that another very important quality of ice was 
brought forward by Faraday in 1850. It was that two pieces of moist ice 
will consolidate into one on being laid in contact with one another, even in 
hot weather. The theory he had just propounded, he said, afforded a clear 
explanation of this fact as follows: The two pieces of ice, on being pressed 
together at their point of contact, will at that place, in virtue of the pressure, 
be in part liquefied and reduced in temperature, and the cold evolved in their 
liquefaction will cause some of the liquid film intervening between the two 
masses to freeze. It is thus evident, he added, that by continued pressure 
fragmentary masses of ice may be moulded into a continuous mass; and a. 
sufficient reason is afforded for the reunion, found to occur in glaciers, of the 
fragments resulting from an ice cascade, and for the mending of the creyas- 
ses or deep fissures which result occasionally from their motion along their 
uneven beds. 


Zor 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 


ON SOME EXPERIMENTS ON THE TRANSMUTATION OF METALS. 


The following very remarkable and suggestive paper, by Dr. J. W. 
Draper, of New York, is published in the Philosophical Magazine, for 
November, 1857 : — 

No one who has used a tithonometer* can have failed to have noticed the 
disturbing effects of minute quantities of extraneous gases, mingled with 
chlorine, on photo-chemical induction. My attention has been directed to 
that subject in its more general aspect; and I will ingenuously confess that I 
have made several attempts at the transmutation of metals, on the principle 
of compelling them, by the aid of solar light, to be disengaged from states 
of combination in the midst of resisting or disturbing media. 

The following is a description of one of these alchemical attempts. In 
the focus of a burning lens, twelve inches in diameter, was placed a glass 
flask, two inches in diameter, containing nitric acid, diluted with its own 
volume of water. Into the nitric acid were poured alternately small quan- 
tities of a solution of nitrate of silver and of hydrochloric acid, the object 
being to cause the chloride of silver to form in a minutely divided state, so 
as to produce a milky liquid, into the interior of which the brilliant con- 
vergent cone of light might pass, and the currents generated in the flask by 
the heat, might drift all the chloride successively through the light. The 
chloride, if otherwise exposed to the sun, merely blackens upon the surface, 
the interior parts undergoing no change; this difficulty I hoped, therefore, 
to avoid. The burning glass promptly brings on a decomposition of the 
salt, evolving on the one hand chlorine, and disengaging a metal on the 
other. In one experiment the exposure lasted from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M.; it 
was, therefore, equal to a continuous mid-day sun of seventy-two hours. 
The metal was disengaged very well. But what is it? It cannot be silver, 
since nitric acid has no action upon it. It burnishes in an agate mortar, but 
its reflection is not like the reflection of silver; it is yellower. The light 
must therefore have so transmuted the original silver as to enable it to exist 
in the presence of nitric acid. In 18271 published some experiments on 
the nature of this decomposition, in the Journal of the Franklin Institute. 

Though this experiment, and several modifications of it, which I might 
relate, fail to establish any permanent change in the metal under trial, in the 


* An arrangement for measuring the chemical action of light. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 271 


sense of an actual transmutation, it does not follow that we should despair 
of a final success. It is not likely that nature has made fifty elementary sub- 
stances of a metallic form, many of them so closely resembling one another 
as to be with difficulty distinguished ; moreover, chlorine and other elemen- 
tary substances can be changed by the influence of sun-light in some respects 
permanently ; and if silver has not thus far been transmuted into a more 
noble metal, as platinum and gold, it has at all events been transmuted into 
something which is not silver. Those who will reflect a little on the matter 
cannot fail to observe that the sun-rays possess many of the powers once 
fabulously imputed to the powder of projection and the philosopher’s stone. 


DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF SULPHUR. 


Among the chemical researches in France during the last few months, we 
would refer to those of Berthelot on sulphur, the allotropic states of which 
element haye appeared to be numerous and varied. Lerthelot reduces all to 
two principal states, viz., that of octahedral sulphur, soluble in sulphuret of 
carbon, and that of amorphous sulphur, insoluble in this sulphuret. . The 
former he calls electro-negative sulphur, for it acts always as a supporter of 
combustion, and separates from compounds in which it plays an electro-nega- 
tive part (as SH, $’C). The insoluble sulphur, on the contrary, is combus- 
tible or electro-positive, and separates from compounds in which it plays an 
electro-positive part (SO*?, SO, S*O*, S304). Under a similar relation, 
Berthelot brings with reason the allotropic states of selenium and phospho- 
rus, which have, as is known, each a state soluble and insoluble in sul- 
phuret of carbon. The two conditions of oxygen, ozone and ordinary oxy- 
gen, are to be considered as dependent on different electrical states, the 
ozone electro-negative, and ordinary oxygen electro-positive. 

Now that the true principle has been indicated, it will be easy to find anal- 
ogous facts, for it is one that will prove to be fertile in its applications. — 
Silliman’s Journal. 


SULPHURIUM. 


Mr. Joseph Jones, of England, announces that he has discovered the per- 
fect metal sulphurium, which is of the same class as arsenium, silver, 
aluminum, &c. Oxide of sulphurium is the refuse of the manufacture of 
sulphuric acid, or brimstone, and has no commercial value, persons being 
paid for carting it away. In its refuse condition it has almost the specific 
gravity of iron, and the atoms are very fine, malleable, ductile, &c. 


CRYSTALLINE FORM OF SELENIUM, IODINE AND PHOSPHORUS. 


Mitscherlich finds that the form of selenium crystallized from bisulphide 
of carbon is an oblique rhombic prism. At 116 deg. F., bisulphide of carbon 
dissolves 0:1 per cent. of selenium, and at 52 deg. F., it dissolves 0016. The 
selenium separates, on cooling the solution, as thin transparent red laminz 


272 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


with considerable lustre, and as granules that are so dark-colored as to ap- 
pear almost black. When heated to 212 deg. F., with water, the crystals are 
not altered in their characters, but when gradually heated to 302 deg. F., 
they become almost black, and are then quite insoluble in bisulphide of car- 
bon. When the altered crystals are melted, and the mass cooled rapidly, it 
again dissolves completely in bisulphide of carbon. The density of the 
crystals before being heated was 4°46 or 4°509 at 59 deg. F., after being 
heated it was 4°7.. The density of selenium crystallized from a solution of 
selenide of sodium was from 4°760 to 4°788 at 59 deg. F. 

It appears that the selenium crystallized from selenide of sodium and the 
granular crystalline selenium are identical, and essentially different from that 
crystallized from bisulphate of carbon. In this respect selenium is analo- 
gous to sulphur, which also exists in two isomeric states, but selenium has a 
much greater stability in its isomeric states. 

The crystals of iodine obtained in various ways have always the same 
form, and do not present any of the peculiarities observed in sulphur, 
selenium, and phosphorus. The crystal form is a rhombic octohedron. 

The crystal form of phosphorus is a regular dodecahedron. 

Very fine crystals of phosphorus may be obtained by exposing phospho- 
rus to sunlight in a tube either exhausted, or filled with a gas which cannot 
oxidize it. Professor Mitscherlich states that he has never observed the 
emission of light from phosphorus during volatilization when oxidizing sub- 
stances were excluded, so that the emission of light would seem to be essen- 
tially connected with oxidation. The crystals of sublimed phosphorus soon 
acquire a red color in sunlight, without alteration of form, but generally it is 
only the outside that is altered, and the change does not consist in the pro- 
duction of the isomeric phosphorus described by Schrotier. 


ON THE FORM OF CARBON, KNOWN AS “GAS CARBON.” 


At a recent meeting of the American Academy, Dr. A. A. Hayes pre- 
sented the following paper, on the form of carbon deposed in retorts used 
for decomposing coal. 

“This form of carbon has been supposed to result from the decomposition 
of olefiant gas by heat; olefiant gas being one of the products of coal de- 
composition, under certain conditions, olefiant gas is represented by C*H?, 
the equivalent being four volumes, and when it is exposed to a temperature 
above redness it deposits carbon in considerable quantity. If exposure and 
heat be continued, the final result is carbon, as a precipitate, and hydrogen as 
a gas, free from carbon. 

“To render probable the supposition of olefiant gas being the source of 
the gas carbon, it has been generally stated that this bicarburet loses two of 
its four proportions of carbon by heat, and becomes converted into marsh 
gas, or light carburet of hydrogen, the formula of which is C?H*; and thus 
the definiteness of an exact result is presented. 

“Tn the manufacture of gas for lighting, an increased temperature in the 
retort diminishes the illuminating power of the gas, and hence it has been 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 278 


assumed that the illuminating effect of the gas is diminished by a loss of the 
carbon contained in the olefiant gas, to which a large part of the light-giv- 
ing quality has been attributed. It becomes an interesting point in general 
chemical science, to learn how far the facts gained by observation and ex- 
periment will sustain these assumptions which have been held in relation to 
the source of gas-carbon as above alluded to, and to inquire into its connec- 
tions more particularly. Gas carbon, in its difficult combustibility under a 
current of heated air, its relation to nitrates of the alkalies and sulphuric 
acid, must be classed with the carbon found in crude iron, and called 
graphitic carbon, or carbon in an allotropic state. It differs as much from 
lampblack and charcoal as these do from diamond, and in the artificial pro- 
duction of it, in all the cases hitherto observed, it has a certain relation to 
vapors. The fine specimens obtained when molten iron passes over moist 
earth, the metallic-like glazing of coke, and the lustrous residues of animal 
decomposition by heat, in presence of vapors, are all instances of the exist- 
ing connection between vapors and this allotropic carbon. 

“Taking a suite of specimens, the microscope enables us to see, in the 
early stages of deposition, that every part is vesicular; that mammillary 
forms result from the aggregation of the vesicles; and, pursuing these ob- 
servations, we often find the broken vesicles filling vacant spaces between 
those more perfect, and a consolidation resulting from this arrangement. 
Where pendent parts exist, their sections show a perfectly regular building 
up from layers of sublimate, each layer being composed of vesicles, more or 
less broken ; the thin sheil of each exhibiting the superposition of layers 
which belongs to bubbles. The examination of hundreds of specimens will 
not show any departure from this character of a sublimate, produced cither 
from its own vapor, or when transported by another kind of vapor. We 
find also that those coal carbo-hydrogens which afford most vapors are those 
which leave in their decomposition most allotropic carbon ; the natural bitu- 
mens affording the most remarkable and convincing results in this way, 

“As the mechanical state of the gas carbon, clearly shown under the 
microscope, as well as to the unassisted eye, is that of a solid left from a 
transporting vapor, observation indicates that it has been thus formed in the 
very compound atmosphere resulting from coal decomposition. It is a fact 
of chemical science, that olefiant gas, when heated, deposits carbon, and the 
fact can be easily demonstrated. But it is a remarkable feature in this de- 
composition, that the gas deposits its carbon in the form of lampblack, and 
the utmost reach of the means of control will not produce an aggregation 
of particles resembling charcoal. In high or comparatively low tempera- 
tures, the deposition never has the state of allotropie carbon, and, chemically 
speaking, there is no evidence that this form of carbon can result from olefiant gas 
changes. If, however, vapors of bitumen are mixed with the olefiant gas, 
these vapors suffer decomposition by heat, and we easily obtain in the mix. 
ture vesicular brilliant carbon in the allotropic state of gas carbon; while 
the vapors solely much more readily afford this substance, in form and com- 
position closely resembling gas carbon. 

“ The subject, as I have studied it, appeared to possess interest in connec- 


274 so ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tion with the new facts which M. H. St. Claire Deville has lately published, 
respecting the graphitic form of Silicon, Boron, &., in which a similarity 
of conditions of production is essential to the effect being obtained. In 
geological theory, the formation of anthracitic carbon in one case, and of 
graphite, with the gradations back to anthracite, in another, has hardly been 
explained ; but if we are allowed to take the allotropic state of carbon as a 
distinctive character of that carbon, which has been sublimed, through the 
agency of its own, or more likely a foreign vapor, then the occurrence of 
these forms of carbon ceases to be anomalous, and accords with the circum- 
stances under which many rocks have been produced. Graphite, graphitic 
carbon, graphitic oxide of iron, and, in general, sublimates composed of 
vesicular forms presenting laminz, under this view become a class of bodies 
which owe their forms to the transporting power of vapors in motion. 

“ Another point observed in the decomposition of olefiant gas deserves 
notice. It is stated in most treatises on chemistry, and adopted as a matter 
of belief in the gas manufacture, that olefiant gas, when heated, deposits 
two of its four proportions of carbon, and, without change of volume, be- 
comes marsh gas. Itis barely possible, as an accidental circumstance, this 
proportion of carbon might be deposited, but it would take place, not as an 
experimental, but as a chance result. When olefiant gas is passed through 
ignited quartz, glass, or iron-turnings, it deposits carbon, which has no defi- 
nite relation to the composition of the gas, a mixed gas being left, containing 
olefiant marsh gas and hydrogen. If the gas is repassed, the carbon may 
be nearly all abstracted, the marsh gas suffering decomposition. 

“The conditions of olefiant gas heated in the products of coal decompo- 
sition are not such as to lead to a breaking up of its carbon arrangement, for 
there are many reasons for the statement, that this bicarburct is itself the 
result of change in the vapor of paraffine and other hydrocarbons of the oily 


characters. 
“‘Tt seems, therefore, a correct deduction from observation and experi- 


ment, that gas carbon is not produced from olefiant gas by deposition, but 
is a product of changes caused by heat in vapors of hydrocarbons, and 
that this allotropic carbon, in other cases, forms in the presence of vapors, 
which can transport carbon in the vesicular state.” 


ON THE EXISTENCE OF SILVER IN SEA-WATER. 


MM. Malaguti, Durocher and Sarzeand, French chemists, some years 
since detected and estimated the amount of silver in sea-water. They had 
suspected its existence and obtained it by passing sulphuretted hydrogen 
through large quantities of water, and also by fusing the salts obtained on 
evaporation with litharge and subsequent cupellation. 

According to the results obtained, a cubic mile of sea-water was esti- 
mated to contain ten pounds and three-quarters of silver. Analyses by the 
same chemists, of marine plants, gave confirmatory results. The silver, 
however, being present in larger quantity. 

As a solution of chloride of silver in chloride of sodium is instantly 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 275 


decomposed by metallic copper, chloride of copper being formed and silver 
precipitated, it appeared to Mr. Frederick Field, an English chemist, resident 
in Chili, highly probable that the copper and the yellow metal (Muntz’s) 
used in sheathing the hulls of vessels, must, after long exposure to sea-water, 
contain more silver than they did before having been exposed to its action, 
by decomposing chloride of silver in their passage through the sea, and de- 
positing the metal on their surfaces. He soon had an opportunity of testing 
the correctness of his surmise. The Ana Guimaraens, a large vessel under 
the Chilian flag, was hauled down to be repaired near Coquimbo, where Mr. 
Field resides, and a few ounces of yellow-metal sheathing from her bottom 
were obtained for analysis. The investigation was interesting, as the metal 
had been on for more than seven years (an unusually long period), and the 
ship had been trading up and down the Pacific Ocean all that time. The 
metal, upon examination, was found to be exceedingly brittle, and could be 
broken between the fingers with great ease. Five thousand grains were 
dissolved in pure nitric acid and the solution diluted; a few drops of dydro- 
chloric acid were added and the precipitate allowed to subside for three days. 
A large quantity of white insoluble matter had collected by that time at the 
bottom of the beaker. This was filtered off, dried, and fused with one hun- 
dred grains pure litharge, and suitable proportions of bitartrate of potash 
and carbonate of soda, the ashes of the filter being also added. The result- 
ing bution of lead was subsequently cupelled, and yielded 2-01 grains silver, 
or 1 lb. 1 oz. 2 dwt. 15 gr., troy, per ton. This very large quantity could 
hardly be supposed to have existed in the original metal, as the value of the 
silver would be well worth the extraction. It is to be regretted that none of 
the original sheathing had been preserved, but a sample of ordinary yellow 
metal, yielded only 18 dwt. to the ton. 

A short time after, however, the captain of a brig, which had just arrived in 
the Pacific from England, gave to Mr. Field a piece of Muntz’s yellow metal 
from his cabin, from the same lot with which the brig was sheathed, but 
which had never been in contact with salt water, and also a small portion from 
the hull of the ship, after it had been on nearly three years. The experi- 
ments were performed as before, and the results were very striking : — 


Grs. Gr. Oz. dwt. grs. 
1,700 from cabin gave........ 051 = 003 percent......— 0 19 4 per ton. 
1,700 from hull gave.....++++.400= "028 =” Leer ey eee ee 


That which had been exposed to the sea having nearly cight times as much 
silver as the original sample. 

Many other specimens were examined of metals from the bottoms of ships, 
and of pieces which are always kept on board in case of need, and it was in- 
variabiy found that the former contained more silver than the latter. For 
instance, a piece from the hull of the Bergmann, gave 5 oz. 16 dwt. 18 gr. 
per ton, while that from the cabin yielded 4 oz. 6 dwt. 12 gr. Two hundred 
grains from a piece from the hull of the Parga gave ‘072 gr., and a piece of 
fresh metal ‘050 gr.; while from the Grasmere, only coppered a few months, 


276 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


610 er. from the hull gave ‘075 gr., and from the cabin ‘072 gr., a very slight 
difference indeed. 

It will be observed that the amount of silver in the above specimens of 
fresh metal is very high, and it is probable that most of these are merely 
the re-rolling of masses of metal melted down from the old sheathing, and 
have derived the greater part of their silver from the sea on former occasions. 
It is weil known that the copper used in the manufacture of yellow metal is 
very pure, containing 2 or 3 dwts. of silver per ton, frequentiy not so much, 
and silver is very seldom associated with the other constituent, zinc. 

To arrive at more certain results, Mr. Field has granulated some very 
pure copper, and reserving a portion in glass, has suspended the remainder 
(about ten ounces), in a wooden box perforated on all sides, a few feet under 
the surface of the Pacific Ocean. When occasion offers, the box is towed by 
a line at the stern of a vessel which is trading up and down the coast of 
Chili. The result of this experiment, when obtained, is to be forwarded to 
the London Chemical Society. 

M. Piesse, of London, as the result of experiment, ascribes the beautiful 
blue color of the Mediterranean Sea to an ammoneacal salt of copper, and 
the greenness of other seas to chloride of copper. His experiments were 
performed between the ports of Marseilles, on the French Mediterranean 
coast, and Nice, in Sardinia. A bag of nails and scrap-iron was suspended 
at the side of the steamer which plies between these places, and after the first 
voyage (about twelve hours), copper was indicated to be present on the iron. 
Four separate voyages, however, were made before the bag of iron was 
removed to the laboratory; then the quantity of copper was found to be so 
great that much surprise was shown that the presence of this metal had not 
been previously discovered, especially when the action of sea-water on 
ship’s bottoms has long been known. 


ON SOME PHENOMENA IN CONNECTION WITH MOLTEN SUBSTANCES. 


Mr. J. Nasmyth, in introducing a paper on the above subject, to the atten- 
tion of the British Association, stated that his object in so doing was to direct 
the attention of scientific men to a class of phenomena which although in 
their main features may be familiar to practical men, yet appeared to have 
escaped the attention of those who were more engaged in scientific re- 
search. The great fact which he desired to call attention to 1s comprised in 
the following general proposition, —namely, that all substances in a molten 
condition are specifically heavier than the same substances in an unmolten 
state. Hitherto water has been supposed to be a singular and special excep. 
tion to the ordinary law,—namely, that as substances were elevated in 
temperature they became specifically lighter, that is to say, water at temper- 
ature 32 deg., on being heated, does, on its progress towards temperature 
40 deg., become more dense and specifically heavier until it reaches 40 deg, 
after which, if we continue to elevate the temperature, its density progres- 
sively decreases. From the facts which Mr. Nasmyth brought forward, it 
appears that water is not a special and singular exception in this respect, but 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 277 


that, on the contrary, the phenomenon in relation to change of density 
(when near the point of solidification) is shared with every substance with 
which we are at all familiar in a molten state, so entirely so, that Mr. Nas- 
myth felt himself warranted in propounding, as a general law, the one 
before stated, —— namely, that in every instance in which he has tested its 
existence he finds that a molten substance is more dense, or specifically 
heavier, than the same substance in its unmolten state. It is on account of 
this that if we throw a piece of solid lead into a pot of melted lead, the solid, 
or unmolten metal, will float in the fluid, or molten metal. Mr. Nasmyth 
stated, that he found that this fact of the floating of the unmolten substance 
in the molten holds true with every substance on which he has tested the ex- 
istence of the phenomenon in question. As, for instance, in the case of lead, 
silver, copper, iron, zinc, tin, antimony, bismuth, glass, pitch, rosin, wax, 
tallow, &c.; and that the same is the case with respect to alloys of metals 
and mixtures of any of the above-named substances. Also, that the normal 
condition as to density is resumed in most substances a little on the molten 
side of solidification, and in a few cases the resumption of the normal con- 
dition occurs during the act of solidification. He also stated that, from 
experiments which he had made, he had reason to belicve that by heating 
molten metals up to a temperature far beyond their melting point, the point 
of maximum density was, as in the case of water at 40 deg. about to be 
passed; and that at such very elevated temperatures the normal state, as 
regards reduction of density by increase of temperature, was also resumed, 
but that as yet he has not been able to test this point with such certainty as 
to warrant him to allude further to its existence. Mr. Nasmyth concluded 
his observations by stating, that he considered this to be a subject well 
worthy of the attention of geologists, who might find in it a key to the expla- 
nation of many eruptive or upheaving phenomena which the earth’s crust, and 
especially that of the moon, present, —namely, that on the point of solidifi- 
cation molten mineral substances then beneath the solid crust of the earth 
must, in accordance with the above-stated law, expand, and tend to elevate 
or burst up the solid crust,--and also express upwards, through the so 
cracked surface, streams more or less fluid of those mineral substances which 
we know must have been originally in a molten condition. Mr. Nasmyth 
stated, that the aspect of the lunar surface, as revealed to us by powerful tel- 
escopes, appeared to him to yield most striking confirmation of the above 
remark. He concluded by expressing a hope, that the facts which he had 
brought forward might receive the careful attention of scientific men, which 
their important bearing on the phenomena in question appeared to him to 
entitle them to. 

A gentleman in the section asked Mr. Nasmyth whether the facts well 
known to chemists, that cast iron, and one or two other metals, in the act of 
solidifying enlarged so as to fill out sharply the minute parts of the mould — 
which was indeed the property on which their great use chiefly depended — 
were not at variance with his general principle. Mr. Nasmyth replied, that, 
so far from that, they were the most striking examples of its application. 


24 


278 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. > 


® 


ON SOME GENERAL METHODS OF PREPARING THE RARER 
ELEMENTS. 


M. Deville has lately published some interesting memoranda upon the 
subject which is now attracting so much attention in France and Germany, 
the preparation of the rarer metals. Deville is of opinion that the best mode 
of preparation consists in igniting the oxide with carbon, taking care to em- 
ploy an excess of oxide. It is however an indispensable precaution to fuse 
the metal in a crucible of lime or magnesia. Crucibles of clay, porcelain, &c., 
are like borax partially reduced by many metals and even by platinum. The 
silicon produced considerably increases the hardness and fusibility of the 
metal. In a crucible of lime the oxide of chromium or manganese in excess 
is absorbed by the lime, forming a chromite or manganite which fuses with 
great difficulty, but which removes from the metal all traces of carbon and 
silicon. The fusibility of the metal diminishes as its purity increases, and 
the author found chromium less fusible than platinum. Deville remarks 
that manganese, as prepared by Brunner’s method, may still contain carbon. 
Sodium prepared from the carbonate always contains more carbon, and 
moreover, from its porosity it frequently retains naphtha, which leaves a 
carbonaceous residue when heated. The employment of Hessian crucibles is 
also objectionable, as silica is easily reduced by sodium, especially in the 
presence of the fluorids. In this manner the author explains the differences 
between Brunner’s manganese and that prepared by himself, which is less 
fusible than iron, and decomposes water at ordinary temperatures. ‘The em- 
poyment of sodium, on the other hand, presents great advantages when we 
wish to obtain an element in a crystallized state. In this case the sodium 

may ofien be replaced by aluminum, as for example, in preparing silicon, 
titanium, zirconium, and boron. In the case of the sesquichlorids of zirco- 
nium, aluminum or chromium, it is always well to make the sodium react 
upon the double chlorids which these bodies form with chlorid of sodium. The 
process should be conducted in acrucible of alumina which is to be heated 
to redness before putting in the mixture of chlorids. In the case of the fusi- 
ble metals it is well to add to the whole a little double chlorid of sodium and 
potassium. Deville and Damour are now applying this process to the 
cerium metals. Sodium attacks porcelain at a low red heat with such en- 
ergy that there is always danger of introducing silicon into metals reduced 
in such vessels. This perhaps explains the difference between the properties 
of chromium as prepared by Frémy and that prepared by Deville and Bun- 
sen, the latter being readily soluble in chlorhydric acid giving a blue solution 
of the protochlorid. In conclusion, the author again recommends the em- 
ployment of crucibles of lime which refine the metals fused in them. The 
platinum metals fused in such crucibles present properties very different 
from those usually attributed to them, the lime serving to deprive them of 
osmium and silicon. —- Comptes Rendus, xliv, 673, March 30th, 1857. 


~ 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 279 


THE METAL MAGNESIUM. 


MM. Deville and Caron, have communicated to the Comptes Rendus 
the following information respecting the Metal Magnesium : 

The chemical properties of magnesium have been determined with extreme 
perfection by M. Bussy, to whom we owe the discovery of this metal. There 
exists, however, in this metal a physical property which has, as yet, been 
overlooked ; it is a new fact in which it resembles zine, to which it was already 
so closely allied. Magnesium is volatile like zinc, and nearly at the same 
temperature. Thirty grammes (about one ounce) have been distilled easily 
at atime. When the magnesium is pure it leaves no residue, and the sub- 
limed metal is white, surrounded with a small quantity of oxide. When it 
is impure it leaves a certain amount of very light black matter of a compli- 
cated nature, and then the distilled magnesium is covered over with small 
needle-shaped crystals, which are colorless and transparent, and which soon 
decompose of their own accord into ammonia and magnesia; this acticn in- 
dicates the probable existence of a nitrid of magnesium, analogous to those 
remarkable bodies which Wohler and Rose have already discovered in a cer- 
tain number of simple bodies. 

Magnesium fuses at a temperature close approaching that at which zine 
fuses. At a little higher temperature it burns with a dazzling flame, in the 
midst of which can be observed, from time to time, tufts of an indigo blue 
tint, more especially if it is burned in a jet of oxygen. The combustion of 
the magnesium is accompanied with all the phenomena observed in the com- 
bustion of zine, and which denote a volatile metal, of which the oxide is fixed 
and infusible. 

The density of magnesium was found to be equal to 1°75; it can be filed 
very well, and burnishes beautifully ; it keeps very well in the atmosphere 
when it is pure and its surface polished, but is scarcely equal to zinc in this 
respect. 

Six hundred grammes of chloride of magnesium, prepared by the ordinary 
process, but with great care, are mixed with about one hundred grammes of 
chloride of sodium, which has been previously fused, or a mixture of the 
chlorides of sodium and potassium and one hundred grammes of pure fluoride 
of calcium ; these are all in powder. ‘To these are added, in small pieces, 
one hundred grammes of sodium, and the whole, mixed intimately, is thrown 
into an earthenware crucible at a red heat, and afterwards covered with a lid. 
In a short time the action begins, and when the noise ceases the crucible is 
uncovered, and the melted mass stirred by means of an iron rod until it ap- 
pears homogeneous; globules of magnesium are now observed, and the 
crucible is taken from the fire to cool. When the saline mass is about to 
congeal it is again agitated, and all the small particles of metal spread over 
it are gathered together by means of the iron rod, and formed into one piece, 
which is drawn on a plate of iron. The scoria or slag may be fused over 
again, once or even twice, and each time a small quantity of the metal is 
obtained from it. Six hundred grammes of chloride of magnesium acted 


280 NNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 
upon by one hundred grammes of sodium has yielded forty-five grammes of 
magnesium. 

The crude magnesium is introduced into a hallow vessel coated with 
charcoal, and this again is placed in a tube likewise coated with charcoal, 
and the whole brought to a lively red, almost white, heat, while a strezm 
of hydrogen gas is made to pass slowly through the tube, which is in- 
clined downwards in the furnace; all the magnesium condenses just be- 
yond the hollow vessel, and is gathered easily when the tube is cold. It 
is afterwards fused in a mixture of the chlorides of magnesium and fluoride 
of calcium. 

In distilling magnesium, if the current of hydrogen is too strong, a little 
metallic powder is carried out of the apparatus along with the hydrogen 
gas. If this is ignited, it burns with one of the most beautiful flames it is 
possible to imagine, and this experiment would make a charming exhibition 
for a lecture room. 


PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF METALLIC MANGANESE. 


Brunner has recently published the following results of an investigation 
of the properties and preparation of the metal manganese : 

The reduction of manganese is obtained as follows: An earthen crucible 
(a Hessian one) is half filled with alternate layers of fluoride of manganese 
and of metallic sodium, cut into plates from one to two lines in thickness, 
in the proportion of two parts of the former to one part of the latter by 
weight; the whole is then gently tapped, in order to leave as few inter- 
stices as possible, and covered with a layer of anhydrous chloride of sodium 
nearly half as thick as the mixture, and over this a layer of fluoride of 
calcium (fluor spar) in pieces as large as a pea. This latter substance 
is for the purpose of preventing the mixture from being projected out of 
the crucible, a rather violent reaction being always the result. 

The crucible, thus charged and covered with a lid, is placed in a forge 
or blast-furnace, and heated gently, and for some considerable time; _be- 
fore the reddening of the crucible the reduction has taken place; this is 
indicated by a whistling noise in the interior of the mass, and a yellow 
flame rising above the crucible; at this point the heat is augmented, and 
carried to a reddish white. The whole is kept at this temperature for 
about a quarter of an hour, and left to cool by shutting up all the open- 
ings into the furnace. On breaking the crucible the metal is found in 
one piece at the bottom. The theoretical quantity of the metal is never 
obtained. The analysis of. the fluoride gives in the composition Mn H, 
from this 100 parts of sodium ought to decompose 203°5 parts of the 
fluoride of manganese to form 183°5 parts of fluoride of sodium, and to 
furnish 120 parts of manganese. However, we ought to be contented with 
little more than the half. 

Manganese thus prepared possesses properties essentially different from 
those which have been commonly attributed to it. Its color is that of 
some cast iron: it is brittle, and docs not flatten out to the hammer, or 
to other mechanical forces ; it is very hard, and not scratched by a file; 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 281 


on the contrary, it turns the edge of the best tempered files. It is capa- 
ble of the very best polish, At the ordinary temperature it is unalterable 
in moist or dry air: polished plates have been kept during two months 
in the atmosphere of the laboratory, charged throughout with moisture 
and other vapors, without the polish having suffered. Heated upon a 
slip of platinum it approaches closely in color to steel, passing afterwards 
into a brown, by covering itself with a coating of oxide. 

Its specific gravity has varied in different trials from 7-138 to 7-206. It 
is not attracted by the magnet, and even when in a state of powder, exerts 
no influence upon the magnetic needle. Acids attack it rapidly. It dis- 
solves easily in dilute sulphuric acid at the ordinary temperature. Nitric 
acid dissolves it rapidly, so does hydrochloric acid, even when much diluted 
with water, and likewise acetic acid. 

There cannot be a doubt that manganese, prepared in this manner, will 
find applications in manufactures. ‘The great hardness of this metal fits 
it for mechanical use. Set at a sharp angle, it can advantageously be sub- 
stituted for the diamond in cutting glass, and even in the polishing steel 
and other metals. It is so susceptible of polish as to appear applicable 
for the purposes of optical instruments ; for instance, the mirrors of teles- 
copes. Although it cannot be forged, it can be rolled into shapes as easily 
as the cast iron. In fine, the alloys of this metal are capable of yielding 
useful substances ; and the attention of manufacturers are now called to this 
subject. It is an established fact, that all steel contains small quantities of 
manganese. It has also for a long time been considered indispensable to 
add substanees which contain this metal to the powder used for the pur- 
poses of cementation employed in making steel. The valuable variety of 
steel, known under the name of Wootz, owes, perhaps, its properties to the 
addition of manganese. 


CRYSTALLIZED CHROMIUM AND ITS ALLOYS. 


BY M. FREMY. 


The result of my researches was to examine, comparatively, iron, man- 
ganese, and chromium, which form, as chemists are aware, a true chemical 
family amongst themselves, and to determine the influences which ean, ac- 
cording to their mode of preparation, vary the properties of these metals 
and that of their alloys. 

I have ascertained, in the beginning, that manganese and chromium are 
obtained in an absolute state of purity when the anhydrous chlorides of 
these metals are submitted to the vapor of sodium. ‘The decomposition 
is effected in porcelain tubes, which are heated to redness, and the vapor 
of sodium, introduced by means of a current of hydrogen, re-acts upon the 
chlorides of the metals, which are placed in little nests or crucibles. Under 
the influence of the alkaline chlorides that are formed in the reaction, as 
well as by the agency of the current of gas, the reduced metals assume 
regular crystalline forms. 

The chromium, which has particularly attracted my attention, presents 
itself in crystals, which shine with a great lustre when they are free, by” 


24* 


282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 

washing them from the alkaline chloride with which they are found mixed. 
These crystals have been examined and recognized as belonging to the cubic 
systems. 

Chrystals of chromium are so hard, and have the curious property of re- 
sisting the action of the strongest acids, and even that of nitrohydrochioric 
acid. It is remarkable to observe chromium, which resembles in every 
other respect manganese and iron, behaving itself like rhodium and iridium 
in the presence of concentrated acids. These facts meet those of M. De- 
ville, recently established in his researches upon aluminum, demonstrat- 
ing that amongst some of the elements we fail to establish a natural classi- 
fication. 

It appeared interesting to study the alloys which chromium can form 
with other metals, and it has been observed that these alloys present often 
the hardness of the chromium, and resist, like it, the action of concentrated 
acids. Ihave obtained the alloy of chromium and of iron, either by reduc- 
ing by carbon the chromate of iron, or in heating in the fire of a forge iron 
and oxide of chromium pure. This alloy crystallizes in long needles, 
which are very hard, and scratch substances the most hard, even tempered 
stecl. 

In examining into the conditions which are most convenient in prepar- 
ing the alloys of chromium, I have observed that the green sesqui-oxide 
of chromium can be easily fused by the heat of a forge, and is changed into 
a black crystalline mass, which has all the characters of the crystallized 
sesqui-oxide of chromium, obtained by decomposing chloro-chromic acid 
by heat. This oxide can be obtained in considerable masses ; it scratches 
quartz easily, as well as tempered steel. It, as well as the alloys of chrom- 
ium, ought to have some application in the arts. 


TUNGSTEN AND ITS COMPOUNDS. 


The following paper by M. Riche, is derived from the Annalen des 
Chemie, v. i. p. 5. 

Many processes have been proposed for the prepatation of the metal 
tungsten, but the process which ought to be employed is the reduction of 
tungstic acid by hydrogen gas. 

If dry hydrogen gas be passed through a porcelain tube containing tung- 
stic acid, heated to redness for at Jeast two hours, a substance is obtained 
which contains no oxygen, and which is the metal in a high state of purity, 
provided the tungstic acid had been carefully prepared. 

It is an error to suppose that a higher temperature than what glass can 
support is not required; on the contrary, it ought to be very high, without 
which the tungsten contains always a certain quantity of the lower oxide, 
and does not present itself with the gray tint and crystalline appearance 
which always characterizes it when in a state of purity. 

A modification of this process has been recommended, which consists 
in cubstituting bitungstate of potash for the tungstic acid. The reduction 
is more easy; however, for several reasons, it is not so valuable as the 
former process. 


© 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 283 


Another process was tried ; it was that which lately has so well succeeded 
with Wohler and Deville; its principle is to act upon chloride of tungsten 
by means of the metal sodium. 

The first experiments were made with the red matter, known under the 
name of chloride of tungsten; its vapor was passed over the sodium, heated 
in a glass tube filled with hydrogen ; the reaction took place, and a brilliant 
metallic matter deposited itself on the tube, but in very small quantity, 
whilst a large quantity of water was disengaged, although every precaution 
had been taken to dry the hydrogen ; this led to the belief that the supposed 
Chloride was an oxichloride, and a true chloride was prepared and passed 
over the sodium as before, when only small quantities of a substance in 
brilliant plates coated the tube, but there was formed an abundant brown 
powder, which was purified by washing. This is pure tungsten, but with- 
out the lustre of the metal reduced by hydrogen from tungstic acid. 

‘According to some experimenters, the atomic weight of tungsten has 
been represented by ninety-six, and by others at ninety-two, but there is 
every reason to believe that this last number is even too high, because it is 
obtained by operating upon tungstic acid prepared by means of carbonate 
of soda, which invariably retains traces of the alkali; besides, the tubes in 
which the reductions were effected were not heated high enough. In this 
ease the tungstic acid was prepared by acting on the mineral wolfram at 
once with nitro-hydrochloric acid, and supersaturating the acid solution 
with ammonia, which gives a tungstate perfectly crystallized. After a 
second crystallization the salt is calcined, and leaves the tungstic acid fit 
for the experiment. Five results were obtained, and the tungstic acid 
considered of the formula Tg O% gave the atomic weight of tungsten as 
eighty-seven. These experiments were confirmed by operating upon tung- 
stic acid prepared in a different manner. 

Tungsten obtained by the action of tungstic acid or hydrogen is in small 
very sharp crystalline grains, isolated from one another, brilliant, suscepti- 
ble of taking a beautiful polish when rubbed, and scratching glass with 
facility ; placed in the fire of a forge so powerful as to alter the shape 
of the crucible, they do not melt. A very powerful Bunsen’s battery was’ 
required to melt tungsten, a very notable portion of the metal became oxi- 
dated and burned with a bluish green flame resembling zinc under similar 
circumstances. It melts similarly and very quickly in a jet of oxygen 
and hydrogen; but still the greater portion of the metal oxidates and dis- 
appears in fumes of tungstic acid. The density of this melted metal is 
17:2. Experiments were made to manufacture it in a similar manner to 
platinum ; but even the most skilled workers in platinum failed in attempt- 
ing it. Oxygen, dry or moist, at the ordinary temperature, does not affect 
it, even after being in contact with it eight months ; but at a temperature of 
redness it burns and yields tungstic acid free from the lower oxides ; in air 
the heat ought to be stronger, but the result is the same. Sulphur in a 
state of fusion does not exert a rapid action upon it. At ordinary tem- 
peratures it does not burn in dry chlorine gas, but at 250 to 300 degress 
Fah., if air and moisture are carefully excluded from the apparatus, it 
forms chloride of tungsten Ts C¥, 


284. ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Carbon unites with tungsten with great facility. The presence or carbon 
was determined in a few grains of the metal that had been melted in char- 
coal; it causes the metal to become brittle. Boiling water, distilled water, 
or ordinary water, do not attack it even at the end of many months ; all that 
can be remarked is, that the metal is slightly tarnished at the surface, but there 
are no traces of the blue oxide formed. With dilute solutions of the alkalies, 
the metal, instead of tarnishing, remains quite bright; but in time there is 
observed a small quantity of tungsten in solution. This action, so slow 
under these conditions, becomes rapid enough if a concentrated and boiling 
solution of potash be employed. Nitric acid heated changes this metal into 
tungstic acid ; this action is not terminated until after some days, whilst it 
is accomplished immediately with aqua-regia. Sulphuric and hydrochloric 
acids attack it but slowly; nevertheless it is attacked, for the blue color of 
the liquid soon becomes manifest. 


CHEMICAL CHARACTER OF TUNGSTEN. 


More recent researches of M. Riche, superintendent of the Chemical 
department of the Faculty of Sciences at Paris, establish the position of 
tungsten in the series of simple bodies. According to him it is a metalloid 
rather than a metal ; and he concludes that although differing in some charac- 


teristics from boron and silicon, it should be arranged along side of these metal- 
lords. 


INTERESTING RESEARCHES ON BORON. 


MM. Wobhler and Deville have recently published the results of some 
interesting researches on Boron, from which it appears that this substance 
can exist in three states, exactly corresponding to those of carbon — the amor- 
phous, the graphitic, and the crystallized state. The preparation of crystal- 
lized boron is as follows : eighty grammes of aluminum in thick pieces are 
fused in a crucible of carbon with one hundred grammes of fused and pulver- 
ized boric acid. ‘The carbon crucible is placed in one of graphite, the inter- 
stices being filled up, and the whole heated in a wind furnace to the temper- 
ature at which nickel melts, for five hours. The mass is then left to cool, 
and, on breaking the crucible, two distinct strata come to view, one consisting 
of vitrified boric acid containing some alumina; and the other of aluminum 
in a metallic state, mixed up with crystals of boron. To separate the latter, 
this metallic mass is treated with boiling caustic soda to dissolve the metal ; 
then with boiling hydrochloric acid to dissolve the iron which may have been 
separated from the plumbago of the crucible; and lastly, with a mixture of 
nitric and hydrofluoric acid, to dissolve the silicum left by the soda. After 
this, the boron will be obtained crystallized in complicated aggregations of 
numerous small crystals the form of which has not yet been determined. 
These crystals are sometimes garnet-red, and sometimes honey-yellow ; the 
color however does not appear to be essential, and may arise from slight im- 
purities. The crystals have a lustre and refractive power like that of the 
diamond. They scratch corundum with the greatest ease, and appear to be 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 285 


almost, if not quite as hard as the diamond itself. Crystallized boron resists 
the action of oxygen even on strong heating, but at the temperature at 
wnich diamond burns, boron oxydizes superficially. Chlorine acts power- 
fully on boron, which takes fire at a red heat in an atmosphere of the gas and 
burns to gaseous chlorid of boron. No acid acts upon boron, but acid sulph- 
ate of potash ata red heat reduces it, sulphurous acid being evolved. Hydrate 
and carbonate of soda oxydize it slowly at a red heat but saltpetre has no 
action at this temperature. 

The graphitoid boron is best obtained by heating fluoborate of po- 
tassium with aluminum. Small masses of boron-aluminum are obtained, 
which on solution in muriatic acid leave the boron in small plates, often 
hexagonal and having the form and lustre of native graphite and graphitoid 
silicon. The plates arcalways opaque. Amorphous boron is best prepared 
by heating a small piece of aluminum with a large quantity of boric acid, 
purifying the product asabove. It is a light chocolate-brown substance, pos- 
sessing all the properties described by Berzelius, Gay Lussac and Thenard. 
The authors conclude that boron resembles carbon more closely than silicon. 


ON SILICIUM AND THE METALLIC SILICIURETS. 


Deville and Caron have presented to the French Academy a memoir upon 
silicium or silicon which exhibits many points of special interest. The 
authors find, in the first place, that aluminum is not the only metal which 
possesses the property of dissolving silicon, but that zinc may also be made 
to act advantageously as a solvent. The preparation of crystalline silicon 
by means of zinc is very simple and easy of execution. An earthen crucible 
is to be heated to redness and a carefully made mixture of three parts of 
fluosilicate of potassium, one part of sodium cut in small pieces, and one 
part of granulated zinc is to be thrown into it. The reaction ensuing is very 
feeble and not sufficient to effect the fusion of the mass. The crucible must 
therefore be kept at a red heat until the scoria is completely fused. The 
heat must not be high enough to vaporize the zinc, or the operation would be 
lost. After slow cooling, the crucible is to be broken, when a button of zine 
will be found, penetrated through its whole mass, and especially on its upper 
surface, by long needles of silicon. These are groups of regular octahedrons 
imbedded in each other parallel to the axis which unites the summits of two 
opposite angles. To extract these crystals, it is only necessary to dissolve 
the zinc in chlorhydric acid, and then boil the silicon with nitric acid. In 
this way crystallized silicon may be obtained in more beautiful crystals, and 
in larger quantity, than by any other method. The only portion of silicon 
lost in this process, is that disengaged in the form of siliciuret of hydrogen 
at the moment of the solution of the zine. If the alloy of zine and silicon be 
heated beyond the point at which the metal volatilizes, the silicon remains in 
the state of a fused mass which is entirely free from zinc. Pure silicon may 
be fused and run into moulds. In this manner the authors prepared ingots 
which were presented to the Academy. The authors are now engaged in 
studying the alloys of silicon which appear to be of much interest. The 


286. ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


alloys with iron are very fusible, and in their physical properties resemble 
cast iron and steel. A very hard, brittle and white alloy of silicon and cop- 
per containing twelve per cent. of silicon is prepared by fusing together three 
parts of fluosilicate of potash, one part of sodium, and one part of copper 
turnings, till a very liquid scoria is obtained. An alloy of copper and sili- 
con containing 4°8 per cent. of silicon possesses a beautiful clear bronze color. 
It is a little less hard than iron, and may be filed, sawed, or turned, like that 
metal. It is perfectly ductile, and wires drawn from it are as tenacious as 
those of iron. The hardness of the siliciurets increases with the quantity of 
silicon, but at the same time their ductility diminishes. They are all char- 
acterized by the fact that silicon is uniformly distributed throughout the mass 
so that the alloys are homogeneous and not susceptible of liquation. The 
authors presented to the Academy two small cannon made of alloys of cop- 
per and silicon. They furnish examples of what may be done in the arts by 
the application of the alkaline metals, and of the progress which is every day 
making in the manufacture of sodium. The authors have not limited their 
experiments to silicon, but expect by similar methods to prepare other simple 
or compound bodies in a crystallized state.— Comptes Rendus, xlv, 163, 
Aug. 1857. 

New Oxide of Silicon. —Wohler has communicated to the French Acad- 
emy of Sciences a brief notice of a new oxide and chlorid of silicon. While 
occupied with the study of the conducting power of aluminum for the gal- 
vanic current, Wohler and Buff observed that when a plate of this metal is 
made the positive pole in a solution of chlorid of sodium, a gas is disengaged 
which takes fire spontaneously in the air. Supposing that the silicon con- 
tained in the aluminum had something to do with the phenomenon, the 
authors sought to prepare the gas by purely chemical means. By heating 
silicon to redness in a current of dry chlorhydric acid gas the acid was easily 
decomposed, hydrogen being evolved and a new chlorid of silicon produced. 
This is a fuming, very mobile liquid, more volatile than the ordinary chlorid, 
SiCls. It is decomposed by water in chlorhydric acid and a new oxide of 
silicon. This latter is a white matter, slightly soluble in water, and very 
soluble in alkali, even in ammonia, disengaging hydrogen gas with efferves- 
cence, and becoming converted into silicic acid. Heated in the air it takes 
fire and burns with a very white light, disengaging hydrogen, which takes 
fire. The authors are studying the constitution of the new chlorid and oxide. 
— Comptes Rendus, xliv, 834. 


ON GOLD IN THE FORM OF MALLEABLE SPONGE. 


Mr. D. Forbes recently described to the London Chemical Society the 
following process for converting gold into the form of a malleable sponge, 
suitable for employment for dentists in the place of the ordinary gold leaf. 

Gold free from copper is dissolved in nitro-hydrochloric acid, keeping an 
excess cf gold in the solution towards the close of the operation, so as to get 
rid of all nitric acid and avoid subsequent evaporation ; any chloride of 
silver present is filtered off. The solution of gold is now placed in a flat- 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 287 


bottomed vessel and heated, and a strong solution of oxalic acid added; in 
a few hours the whole gold is deposited, and the supernatant liquid may be 
decanted off, taking care all the time not to disturb the gold at the bottom, 
and the vessel is then several times filled up with boiling water and decanted 
until the last washings contain no more oxalic acid. 

The gold is now carefully slipped on to a piece of filtering-paper, and by 
means of a spatula gently pressed into the form of the desired cake, but 
somewhat thicker; it is then removed toa porcelain crucible, and heated 
for a short time somewhat below a red heat, when it shrinks in dimensions, 
becomes coherent, and suitable for usc. This process is essentially different 
from one patented and used in this country. 


MANUFACTURE OF ALUMINIUM. 


Dumas recently announced to the French Academy that the problem of 
rendering the preparation of aluminium an industrial operation has now been 
solved. The methods have been devised by MM. Deville and Morin, and 
differ but little from those originally employed. It is necessary always to 
decompose the chlorid of aluminium, and decompose it by sodium, in order 
to obtain the aluminium. ‘The chlorid is now made by the direct use of 
kaolin, or even of clay. But this is not all. The chloride was difficult to 
manage in a large way, because, after having been formed in vapor, it was 
often condensed in snowy crystals, rendering it necessary to collect it in 
chambers, and detach it mechanically from the surfaces it coated. There 
was, first, a loss of the chlorid, the condensation being incomplete ; second, 
danger for the workmen exposed to the respiration of the vapors ; third, 
an enhancement of cost from the interruptions of the occupations. The im- 
provement consists in submitting to a current of chlorine — no longer a mix- 
ture of alumina and charcoal,—buta mixture of alumina, charcoal and 
chlorid of sodium ; this affords a double chlorid of aluminium and sodium, 
which is volatile and liquifiable, running like water, and becoming solid with 
cold. The preparation goes on uninterruptedly, proceeding with simplicity 
and regularity, and exacting no other care than what is necessary for the 
production of the chlorid, the renewal of the preparation for decomposition, 
and the substitution, as soon as cooled, of earthen pots, in which cakes form 
from the double chlorid that flows in in a continued stream. 

The chlorid is decomposed in a reverberatory furnace, into which, mixed 
vith bits of sodium, it is introduced. The reaction of the two substances 
takes place after a few moments, but so quietly that it may be done on a 
large scale without danger. It leaves the aluminium in plates, globules, or 
a powder. It is separated from the common salt either mechanically or by 
means of water. 

Dumas asserts that the cost of making sodium is at the most seven francs 
a kilogram, and that its manufacture is easier than that of phosphorus and 
also as simple as that of zinc. 

By acting on a mixture of carbonate of soda, carbon and chalk, the 
reaction is so complete that the result agrees with calculation, and so easy 
that we may substitute for the iron bottle commonly used, luted copper 
tubes. 


288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


In the manufacture of sodium the carbon is now replaced by coal. - De- 
ville uses a coal which burns with considerable flame. It is important that 
the mixture should be well dried before subjected to decomposition. The 
proportion used are as follows : 


Carp OnalexORIs OU Ass. maids ie/cisl aeisieieiaielajsrerejolelaye visiaepelotkelelis eereee nO Un RALe 


The soda ought to be from the crystallized carbonate; the soda of the 
shops gives bad results without Deville’s knowing precisely why. 

Mr. Newton (for a foreign correspondent) has also patented in England, a 
process by which the production of aluminium is reduced to an essentially 
practical and commercial form. It has hitherto been the practice to effect 
the reduction of aluminium from its different compounds (single or double 
chlorides or fluorides) in closed vessels, and in published descriptions on 
this subject it has been usual to mention the employment of crucibles en- 
closed in tubes or retorts of fire-clay, coated with alumina. As the em- 
ployment of the apparatus is attended with disadvantages, the inventors 
have, in the first place, substituted for such apparatus vessels made of cast 
or wrought iron, of varying form but generally approaching that of cruci- 
bles, pots, or seggars, in which vessels, the reaction is effected in the same 
manner as in vessels of clay. The inventors of the present improvements 
have also succeeded in effecting the reduction in chambers made of brick- 
work or fire-clay, which may be either heated in the same manner as a 
reverberatory furnace, or by the transmission of heat through the sides. 
The apparatus employed by preference, however, is a reverberatory furnace, 
the bed of which, having a portion of it inclined, is arranged in a suitable 
manner for facilitating the collection of the metal as it is produced ; but the 
furnaces ordinarily employed for the manufacture of soda may be used for 
this purpose. Another improvement consists in modifying the composition 
ef the mixture or matters for effecting the reaction in such a manner as to 
ensure successful operation, even when operating upon small quantities of 
materials, or with vessels of small capacity, such as clay retorts or other 
closed vessels. This is effected by wholly, or toa great extent, dispensing 
with the marine salt, which is usually added either to the simple chloride of 
aluminium, the double chloride of aluminium and sodium, or to the fiuoride 
of aluminium and sodium (cryolite), and in simply adding a suitable pro- 
portion of fluoride of calcium. The use of marine salt had been hitherto 
considered necessary for the successful performance of the reduction, and in- 
dispensable as a flux for causing the metal to unite ; in operating with the 
double chloride of aluminium and of sodium it had been pointed out, and 
always employed in the proportion of fifty per cent. to the double chloride. 
It has been found by experience that by diminishing this proportion better 
results are obtained, and by dispensing with the marine salt altogether, the 
largest quantity of metal is obtained. The following is the mode of operat- 
ing, according to this improvement, when it is required to effect the reduc- 
tion of the double chlorid:: Take of the double chloride of aluminium and 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 289° 


vf sodium, one hundred parts; fluoride of calcium, fifty parts; sodium, 
twenty parts. (These proportions may, however, be somewhat varied, ac- 
cording to circumstances.) These substances having been mixed together, 
are introduced upon the bed of the furnace, previously heated to redness. 
The fire bars having been well fed with fuel, the furnace is closed. The 
reaction will then take place, and by agitating the materials all the alumin- 
ium will be collected in a mass at the inclined part of the bed, and may be 
run off therefrom. By first pouring off the whitest and most fluid portion 


_ of the scorize, composed chiefly of the marine salt which has been produced 


by the reaction, the fluoride of aluminium (which is also an accessory pro- 
duct of the reaction) may also be extracted therefrom. The appearance of 
the scoriz remaining is very peculiar, after cooling; it is slightly tinged 
with a color approaching a yellowish gray. This scorie does not contain 
the finely-divided aluminium powder which is met with when the reaction is 
produced with marine salt; it only contains sometimes globules of alumin- 
ium, in sufficient quantity to enable it to be collected by pulverizing and 
washing the mass. When, on the contrary, marine salt is employed, the 
mass of scoriz is of a decided deep gray color; this arises from the alumin- 
ium powder mixed with the mass, in which are found only microscopic 
globules, which are at first difficult to collect, and unite by melting. 

An additional method of producing aluminium has also been recently 
brought out in England. It consists in placing fluoride of aluminum in an 
iron oven, which may be heated in various ways. This oven is first strongly 
heated, and on the floor thereof is placed a number of shallow dishes. A 
number of these dishes are filled with dry and well-powdered fluoride of 
aluminum, and the remainder with iron filings. They are so arranged that 
all of those dishes which contain the fluoride are on all sides surrounded by 
dishes containing the iron filings. The oven is then closed and luted, and 
the heat increased to redness, after which a stream of dry hydrogen gas is 
introduced. The effect produced is, that the hydrogen gas combines with 
the fluorine, and forms hydrofluoric acid, which acid is taken up by the iron, 
and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron, whilst the resulting aluminum 
remains in the metallic state in the bottom of the trays containing the 
fluoride. 


ALLOYS OF ALUMINIUM. 


MM. C. and A. Tissier find that the valuable properties of aluminium are 
injured by the presence even of small quantities of other metals. One- 
twentieth of iron or copper make it almost impossible to work the alloy, 
while one-tenth part of copper renders aluminium as brittle as glass. An 
alloy of five parts of silver with one hundred of alumini:im works like silver, 
but is harder, and takes a finer polish. The one-thousandth of bismuth ren- 
ders aluminium so brittle that it cracks under the hammer, even after being 
repeatedly annealed. The presence of aluminium in other meials often com- 
municates valuable properties when the quantity is not too large. Thus 
one twentieth part of aluminium gives copper a )heautifal gold color 
and hardness enough to scratch the standard alloy of goid employed for . 


25 


290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


coins, whilst at the same time injuring the malleability of the copper. 
One-tenth of aluminium gives with copper a pale gold-colored alloy of great 
hardness and malleability, and capable of taking a polish like that of steel. 
Five parts of aluminium with one hundred parts of pure silver give an alloy 
almost as hard as silver coin containing one tenth of copper, and thus per- 
mits usto harden silver without introducing a poisonous metal. — Comptes 
Rendus, xiii, 885. 

Debray has also communicated the results of experiments on the alloys 
of aluminium, apparently more numerous and varied than those of MM. 
Tissicr. , , 

According to this authority it forms alloys with most metals, and in most 
cases the combination takes place with great evolution of light and heat. 
An alloy of ten parts of aluminium and ninety parts of copper possesses 
greater hardness than ordinary bronze, and is worked when hot with more 
ease than the best soft iron. As the proportion of aluminium increases, the 
alloys generally become harder; they become brittle beyond very narrow 
limits with gold and copper. These metals also lose their color, and soon 
become completely colorless. Aluminium becomes more brilliant and a little 
harder, still remaining malleable, with small proportions of zine, tin, gold, 
silver, and platinum. Iron and copper do not greatly injure the properties 
of aluminium if they are not in too great quantities; one or two per cent. 
of sodium, on the contrary, forms an alloy which readily decomposes cold 
water. For practical purposes, it is unnecessary that aluminium shovld be 
entirely deprived of iron. Metal reduced from impure chlorides, but of 
which the malleability and tenacity differed but little from those of pure 
aluminium, contained seven to eight per cent of iron. The union of the twe 
metals takes place with facility ; the iron pokers with which the liquid baths 
are stirred in the furnaces where aluminium is produced become covered with 
a brilliant layer of this metal. Aluminium contaminated with iren is puri- 
fied by a simple fusion in nitrate of potash. M. Debray alloyed five parts 
of aluminium with ninety-five parts of iron, without imparting to the latter 
properties very different from its own. An alloy of zine containing ninety- 
seven of aluminium and three of zinc is a little harder than the metal; al- 
though very malleable, it is equal in brilliancy to any other alloy of alumi- 
nium. Aluminium may contain ten per cent. of copper without losing its 
malleability, which is diminished, however; the metal reduced in copper 
trays contains from five to six per cent.; it is also worked with facility. 
With ten per cent. it becomes brittle, but remains white as long as the pro- 
portion of copper does not exceed 80 per cent. The alloy thus obtained is 
white and brittle, and resembles the metal of telescope mirrors. The alloy 
with eighty-five per cent. of copper is still brittle, but begins to grow yellow. 
The copper probably loses its color when it is below cighty-two per cent., 
which corresponds with Cu? Al. The aluminium bronze already mentioned 
unites with the property of being forged when hot, that of great unalterability 
in the presence of hydrosulphate of ammonia. Its yellow color is fine, but 
inferior to that of the alloy of ninety-five copper and five aluminium. An 
alloy of three parts silver and. ninety-seven aluminium has a very fine color, 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 291 


and is unalterable in presence of sulphuretted hydrogen. One part of alu- 
minium and one part of silver give a material as hard as bronze. An alloy 
of ninety-nine gold and one aluminium is very hard, but malleabie; its color 
is that of green gold. ‘The alloy of ten aluminium is colorless, crystaliine, 
and consequently brittle. 


ARTIFICIAL WHITE SAPPHIRES. 


Some ten years ago, the late M. Ebelman, then director of the govern- 
ment Porcelain Manufactory at Sévres, succeeded in crystallizing alumina 
by slowly evaporating a solution of this substance in boracie acid, by the 
heat of his furnaces. The crystals thus produced were microscopic but pos- 
sessed all the properties cf the sapphire, ruby, &c., except the color. <A few 
years after, Mons de Senarmont obtained crystals of alumina and of silica, 
by gees closed glass tubes, containing water and hydratcs of alumina 
and silica, to a temperature of 180 deg. centigrade. The heat drove off the 
water from these earths, and converted them into insulated, anhydrous, and 
microscopical crystals, of rare beauty, and quite perfect. 

M. Gaudin, in a communication made during the past year, to the French 
Academy, states that during the last twenty years he has directed his atten- 
tion to the production of precious stones, but more particularly to rubies, 
and that he had succeeded in making rubies artificially by calcining ammo- 
nia-alum with the addition of five-thousandths of chromate of potassa, by 
the oxyhydrogen blowpipe—but that the large globules were deficient in 
limpidity, owing to partial crystallization. 

Recent experiments have, however, proved more successful, and he has 
‘been enabled to obtain in a quarter of an hour, with a common forge fire, 
thousands of crystals, the size of which is sve poriionele to the volume and 
duration of the fire. For this purpose he proposes the following process. 
Into an ordinary crucible lined with lampblack, he introduces equal parts of 
alum and sulphate of potassa, previously calcined and powdered; the cru- 
cible is then submitted to a violent forge heat for a quarter of an hour. If 
the heat has been sufficient there will be found in breaking the crucible a 
small black concretion —sulphuret of potassium —covered with brilliant 
points — crystals of alumina. If this mass be placed in a capsule fille 
with acidulated water, and submitted to heat, the sulphuret wili be dissolved 
out with effervescence, leaving at the bottom white sapphires, that at first 
sight appear like diamond powder. Under the microscope each grain ap- 
peared to be a crystal of marvellous limpidity. 

Although coloring agents were introduced into the crucible, the sapphires 
have generally remained colorless, (owing to the reducing action of the car- 
bon, which transforms all the coloring oxides into metallic globules), but in 
one experiment small colored crystals were deposited on the colorless crys- 
tals, and on one of the facets of a sapphire were found three hundred small 
rubies. 

The greater the mass operated on, the larger the crystals. Those ob- 
tained by M. Gaudin were one mm. (5), in) in length; and about one-third 


292 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


thick. These are said to have proved upon trial, to be harder than the 
natural crystals, and therefore more fitted for mounting watches. 


ON THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL THROUGH THE AGENCY OF 
FERRO-CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM. 


A company, under the name of the ‘‘ Damascus Steel Company,” has 
recently been formed, and commenced practical operations in New Jersey, 
for manufacturing steel through the agency, principally, of ferro-cyanide of 
potassium. 

A recent writer in the New York Tribune gives the following account of 
the process, and the cost of the manufacture :— In small furnaces made of 
fire-brick and arranged in rows, the top being level with the floor, the cruci- 
bles are placed, two in each furnace, upon anthracite for fuel. This is kept 
in vivid combustion by a blower at the bottom. Each crucible holds sixty 
pounds of wrought iron, and the flux scatterred among the pieces. This 
consists of ferro-cyanide of potassium, (prussiate of potash), sal ammoniac 
and a little common salt, with which a few ounces of fine charcoal and 
a little black oxide of manganese are mixed. Their whole value fora cru- 
cible holding sixty pounds of metal is not more than eight cents. In the 
operation we lately witnessed 2,515 pounds of anthracite were consumed in 
melting twelve crucibles of iron, making the cost of fuel to the crucible fifty- 
eight cents. Each crucible costs one dollar, and lasts four heats, making 
the cost to sixty pounds twenty-five cents. Labor is estimated at sixteen 
cents to each melting of a crucible. Allowing the iron te cost $85 per ton, 
all the expense, beside superintendence, coal for the engine, which drives the 
blast, and general expenses, is for each crucible about $3.54. The steel pro- 
duced weighs the same as the iron, the carbon taken up replacing the waste. 
Adding to the other items the cost of re-heating and drawing out the ingots 
into bars, the whole expense per ton of cast steel bars is about $142 for the 
same quality of steel we import at a cost of $300. The time required to 
“melt the wrought iron is from three to four hours. In regular working, three 
heats have been run in nine hours. A curious fact has been observed in re- 
lation to the difference of time required to melt wrought iron derived from 
charcoal, pig, and that from anthracite pig iron, the latter requiring from 
thirty to forty minutes more than the former. There is no perceptible dif- 
ference yet noticed in the qualities of the steel made from these irons. 
When lifted out from the furnaces the crucibles are taken to the ingot moulds, 
and the liquid metal is poured into them, precisely as is done in the melting 
and pouring of the blistered steel. This operation, therefore, involves no 
more labor and no more time than the simple melting part of the English 
method of making cast steel. The long cementation process is entirely done 
away with. The ingots, when taken from the moulds, are ready to be re- 
heated for hammering or rolling, and these operations are conducted as in 
other steel works. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 293 


PRESENT STATE OF THE BESSEMER QUESTION. 


t is only some few months since all Europe was standing on tip-toe, in 
expectation of witnessing a great and marvellous revolution in the manu- 
facture of iron and steel, by a new and ingenious process, to which it is only 
necessary to allude in passing as that patented by Mr. Bessemer. It was 
something quite astounding to those who knew by what tedious and expen- 
sive means steel was produced from iron in the olden time, to be told that, 
by the new process, steel was the easier and cheaper production of the two. 
It was no less wonderful in the eyes of those who had considered iron as, at 
least in the open air, an incombustible, to be shown that it was, in fact, a 
highly combustible material ; and that, if once heated by fire to a certain 
point, it might then, by strong air currents be actually ttse/f set on jire, and 
made to burn with a fierce incandescence. 

It is humiliating to think upon what small matters great ones often de- 
pend. There appears to be no reasonable doubt that Mr. Bessemer woyld 
have realized all he promised to accomplish but for one slight circumstance, 
which it is our intention now to explain, and the difficulty connected with 
which has, at least for the present, frustrated his expectations. 

The subject of iron-founding has been so completely popularized by the 
discussions of this patent in the public press, that it will only be necessary 
for us to recall attention to the fact, that iron ore contains several foreign 
matters in intimate combination, and that upon their expulsion during the 
founding process depends the success of the ironmaster’s work. These 
foreign bodies are chiefly carbon, silicon, sulphur, and phosphorus. The 
old methods of roasting, casting, refining, puddling, and rolling were found 
to effect the object in view sufficiently for all practical purposes. In Mr. 
Bessemer’s process, all these substances, except phosphorus, are effectually 
expelled. It would seem that up to the present time this material has re- 
sisted all the efforts of Mr. Bessemer. It defies the utmost heat of his fur- 
naces, ‘and has no sufficient affinity for oxygen, or any other body brought in 
contact with it, to consent, for its sake, to let go its tenacious grasp of the 
iron. Now, phosphorus in iron is, as it appears, fatal to the useful qualities 
of the metal; it renders the iron brittle and unserviceable; and as no por- 
tion of it can be detected in the slag of the furnace, it would seem that, so 
far as its expulsion is concerned, Mr. Bessemer has as yet altogether failed. 
But it would surely not be at all philosophical to conclude that the question 
is finally set at rest, however serious the objection may be to which we have 
now called attention. It can hardly be too much to expect that in. the re- 
sources of modern science some ingredient may yet be discovered, the re- 
sults of which, in the instance before us, will be no less striking than those 
of soda, borax, and potash, when used as fluxes in various indusirial opera- 
tions. We should not be surprised any day to hear that some such depurg- 
ative had been discovered, and that its admixture with the incandescent iron 
in the furnace was found to detach the phosphorus, and leave the iron in a 
perfectly pure state. We wish we could go further than suggest the exist- 
ence-of some such drug, or metal, or mineral, whatever it may be. Wesus- 

25* 


294 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pect that the man who could go farther than this, and supply Mr. Bessemer 
with its local habitation and its name, would participate largely in a most 
lucrative as well as scientifically honorable discovery. 

We could ourselves easily indicate certain metallic combinations which, 
in dealing with phosphorus in its uncombined state, possess the power of 
neutralizing its caustic properties ; but this may be far indeed from indicat- 
ing a power in such preparations to deal with that wonderful substance as it 
is found in nature, united with the crude oxide of iron. Indeed, we take 
for granted that men of the highest mark in chemical science are just now 
eagerly devoting their attention to this interesting problem ; and, as we have 
said, we look forward rather hopefully than otherwise to the result. 

We are very far from participating in the triumph expressed by many at 
the partial, and, in truth, temporary failure in the expectations raised in the 
public mind by Mr. Bessemer and his discoveries ; but it is still true that, up 
to the present time, the ‘revolution ” has not come off. The new aspirants 
for dominion in the realms of metallurgy —we mean, of course, air-blast and 
oxygen —have not as yet been able to wrest the sceptre from the hand 
of “Old King Coal.” His carbonaceous majesty is still “master of the 
situation ; ”? how long he may continue so, we by no means venture to take 
on ourselves even to conjecture. 

In a recent discussion before the London Chemical Society on the various 
new processes of Bessemer, Martin, and others, for the manufacture of iron, 
Professor Abel remarked that of all foreign elements in the metal, the silicon 
was most readily and completely abstracted, both in the ordinary and in the 
newly proposed refinery processes. The primary effect of air when passed 
into the fluid metal is to oxidize a portion of the iron, the temperature of 
the mass being thereby raised and maintained ; the silicon is simultaneously 
oxidated, and the graphite converted into carbide of iron; which last, after 
the attainment of a sufficiently high temperature, is decomposed by the air, 
and the carbon almost completely burnt off. It had been demonstrated by 
repeated experiments that treatment with air alone did not remove the sul- 
phur or phosphorus to any important extent; the abstraction of these cle- 
ments requiring prolonged contact with such agents as oxide of iron, as in 
the ordinary puddling process. This last process is consequently the only 
effective plan of purifying iron, but the circumstance of its efficiency de- 
pending chiefly on the skill and industry of the workman is alone sufficient 
to stimulate manufacturing energy to the production of a less laborious, 
more rapid, and equally efficacious method of frecing the metal from those 
foreign elements, whose presence detracts largely from its most valuable 
properties. 


ELECTRIC GILDING, SILVERING AND PLATINIZING. 


M. Laudois, of Paris, announces the preparation of a gold, silver and 
platina bath, having no deleterious exhalation, and capable of depositing 
solid coating upon the metals. M. L. dissolves a given weight of cyanide 
of gold, silver or platina, in a saturated solution of common salt; the solu- 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 295 


tion is filtered and may be then used. The galvanic deposit takes place 
cold very rapidly, and the results are equal to those obtained by MM. 
Ruotz and Elkington. 


RESTORATION OF ANCIENT BRONZES. 


M. Chevreul has recently communicated to the French Academy a paper 
setting forth researches made by him on certain ancient bronze statucttes 
brought from Egypt. We take one example. He placed a small com- 
pletely oxidated effigy of Anubis in a porcelain tube, filled the tube with 
hydrogen gas, and raised it to a dull red heat. Presently, water, colored 
green, was seen to condense in the bell glass, and after letting the apparatus 
cool, “I took out the statuette,” he says, ‘‘ completely revivified. I placed it 
before the eyes of the Academie, together with the water and chlorhydric 
acid which represent the oxygen and chlorine of Egypt, now transformed at 
Paris, by hydrogen, into water and acid.” 


ON THE PRODUCTION OF HEMATITE. 


At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes stated that he had proved, from careful analysis and examinations of 
pseudomorphs, as well as the more ordinary forms of hematite, that the in- 
filtration of an aqueous solution of silicates of proto-peroxides of iron and 
manganese, caused the production of hematite. The beautiful black, glossy 
covering, which confers so much beauty on the ores of iron not truly hem- 
atites, as well as the ore of manganese, is always composed of silicate of 
proto-peroxide of iron, with silicate of one or both oxides of manganese ; 
and the compact peroxides of manganese, oltcn owe their density and hard- 
ness to this compound. 


OREIDE—A NEW ALLOY. 


Messrs. Mourier and Vallent, of Paris, have recently succeeded in forming 
an alloy which very closely resembles gold. The materials and proportions 
used by them are, pure copper, 100 parts (by weight) ; zinc, 17 ; magnesia, 
6; sal ammoniac, 3°60; quick lime, 1°80; tartar, 9. 

The copper is first placed in a crucible in a suitable furnace, and fused. 
the magnesia is then added slowly, then the sal ammoniac, lime and tartar 
sevarately and in the form of powder. These are kept from the air, and well 
stirred with the copper for twenty minutes, until the whole are incorporated 
together. The zinc is then added in strips or fine pieces, thrust through the 
crust on the top of the copper. The whole mass in then thoroughly stirred, 
the crucible closed, and its contents kept in fusion for twenty-five minutes. 
After this the crucible is opened, and skimmed very carefully to remove all 
the dross. The alloy thus formed is poured out into dry sand moulds if re- 
quired to be rolled; if not, it may be poured into iron moulds. When re- 
melted in a blast furnace, it is rendered more applicable for ornamental 
works of art. 


296 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


This alloy, it is stated, is very beautiful, resembles gold in many respects, 
and may be used in a pure condition, or as a base for gold plating. Its cost 
is about eighty cents per pound, and yet its appearance is such that it would 
readily be taken for gold by most casual observers. 

In France a law has already been passed to prevent frauds, by compelling 
under severe penalties for neglect, all manufacturers of “oreide ” to stamp 
the word upon the articles produced. 

Castings made of oreide are cleansed with an ordinary pickle of sulphuric 
acid and water to remove the oxide. The zinc may be replaced with tin, 

ut it makes the alloy more brittle. 

The manufacture of oreide has been recently commenced at Waterbury, ’ 
Conn. 


NEW ALLOY OF SILVER. 


A new alloy, applicable for many purposes in place of silver, has recently 
been brought out in Paris. It is composed of silver, copper, and purified 
nickel, which metals may be combined in any suitable proportions ; as 
silver, twenty parts; nickel, from twenty-five to thirty-one parts; and the 
rest up to one hundred parts in copper. An alloy is thus produced, con- 
taining twenty per cent. of silver, and constituting silver of the third degree 
of fineness, thus reversing the proportions of the ordinary compositions of 
the second degree. The copper employed must be the purest obtainable, 
and the nickel should be purified by some suitable process. 


ON THE ORIGIN OF “CLAY STONES. 


The following is an abstract of a discussion which recently took place in 
the Boston Society of Natural History, on the origin of the concretions 
found in clay, and familiarly known as “ clay stones: ” 

Dr. C. T. Jackson considered the crystallizing force of the carbonate of 
lime to be the cause of the concretionary structure and form of these bodies, 
the foreign substances occasionally formed within them, serving as nuclei 
around which this semi-crystallization took place, the carbonate of lime ag- 
gregating and carrying with it the inert particles of clay, the spheroidal form 
being that which would result from this action when the force was not ade- 
quate to the production of crystals. He illustrated this view by reference to 
the spheroidal structure of hyallite and of various hydrous silicates, which 
form from a gelatinous paste, in which there is not sufficient freedom of 
motion to allow of the formation of perfect crystals. In case there were a 
larger proportion of carbonate of lime in solution as a bicarbonate, the crys- 
talline forms would become more perfect, as in the well-known crystalline 
sand alone of Fontainbleau, in which grains of silicious sand are forced into 
the form of calcareous spar by the energetic segregation of the crystallizing 
carbonate of lime ; the sand being inert matter which was forced by the cal- 
careous salt to enter into the crystalline form of the spar. 

Similar illustrations were adduced from chemical experiments and ob- 
servations in which spheroidal forms result, and also in which foreign bodies 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 297 


are forced to enter into the structure of crystals. He quoted the experi- 
ments of Beudant, which he had repeated, in which Prussian blue was 
included in crystals of nitre and alum. WHe also alluded to the effects of 
different menstrua, in modifying the forms of crystals or totally changing 
their forms, instancing the crystallization of sea salt in the forms of the 
regular octahedron in a solution of urea, whereas the cube is its usual 
form. 

Dr. A. A. Hayes followed Dr. Jackson. Having inquired of Dr. J. how 
large was the proportion of sand in the Fontainbleau crystallized sandstone, 
and received for answer about fifty per cent., he said that he had often ex- 
amined the spots where they were forming, and had noticed a growth equal 
to the size of a garden bean, to take place in the course of two or three weeks 
of wet, spring-time weather. To form a just conception of the conditions, 
the fact must be kept in view, that the beds containing them are composed 
of fine silts, and in the case immediately under view, these were arranged in 
planes of deposition of alternate courses, covered by much finer material, in 
layers of different thickness; so that the mass was stratified; the coarser 
layers being very permeable to water. The rounded forms, often strongly 
resembling organic remains, are found resting between these layers, and a 
condition necessary to their formation is, the presence in the layer or rock 
above them of abundance of carbonate of lime. 

The force exerted by some salts in their tendency to crystallize is brought 
into view only when we study their formation, and carbonate of lime is one 
of the constantly-occurring salts which well illustrates, in a remarkable 
manner, this power of assuming regular forms. As has been stated, with 
fifty per cent. of its weight of sand, it forms regular rhomboids, but the more 
recent observations of some African travellers, who found their progress im- 
peded by ‘‘stone plants,” six or eight inches high, formed of aggregates of 
spear-shaped crystals of sand, cemented by carbonate of lime, show, that 
this large proportion may be exceeded, while the foreign material is in a 
somewhat coarse state. 

In the formation of claystones, however, we are to consider the presence 
of tinely-divided matter suspended in, or so mixed with water of infiltration 
in spring-time, or general saturation from position, that it has nearly a semi- 
fluid state. A saturated solution of bicarbonate, or more commonly crenate 
of lime, finds its way into the soft mass, by frost crevices, or channels left by 
roots, or even air-bubbles, and at these points the concretions commence, 
when no nuclei of similar chemical composition exist. The finely-divided 
matter interposes an obstacle to the formation of crystals of carbonate of 
lime, far greater than an equal amount of coarser foreign matter would do ; 
and we observe, then, the influence of that beautiful law in accordance with 
Which rounded forms are produced. In the laboratory similar forms daily 
oceur, where the presence of finely-divided and diffused bodies arrests the 
formation of crystals, and globular, or curved-surfaced solids are produced ; 
as in the animal frame, the cell-structure causes the dissolved phosphate of 
lime to take the curvilinear form pertaining to organization. The claystones 
which are produced under the simple conditions here described, have no con- 


298 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


centric structure; a slight conformity to this structure being observed, when 
a bubble of air, or a vacant space, marks the point of commencing deposi- 
tion. In other cases, a shell in its calcareous composition offers a preferred 
nucleus, and as it contributes its lime salt, a concentric arrangement may be 
noticed in the forms resulting, especially after exposing them to heat. 
Rounded massed once formed become centres, or nuclei of secondary occur- 
ring aggregates, one central mass being surrounded by spheres attached ; 
but in all it is easy to read the influence of the tendency of carbonate of lime 
to crystallize, and the opposition of the finely-divided silt, causing the par- 
ticles of both to assume forms without straight bounding lines, as the polar- 
izing force of crystallization is arrested in all directions. 

It may be added that a great number of bodies present rounded forms de- 
pendent on a modification of this law of restrained crystallization, such as 
numerous iron ores, bog manganese, and even the more compact forms, 
where infiltrated solutions, forming part of the material, existed at the 
moment of aggregation. 

Dr. Hayes also made some remarks on the formation of macle crystals, 
the true theory of which he stated that he had many years since illustrated 
by numerous specimens and examples. Starting from the point where 
Beudant left the subject resting on a supposition, it occurred to him that the 
law was quite within the scope of a chemical demonstration, which would 
place this and similar instances of crystallization among known scientific 
facts. Without entering minutely into the matter, we may take as an ex- 
ample a salt exerting a strong tendency to crystallize from a hot solution on 
cooling, — ordinary saltpetre. A solution of this salt, in a pure state, 
slowly cooled, affords solid, six-sided prisms, or the crystals become solid 
if allowed to rest in the fluid, and we observe nothing but the result of ordi- 
nary crystallization. If the process has been carefully watched, —and it is 
a most interesting and instructive exhibition, —it will be observed that the 
particles of solid, so soon as they become visible, are rectangular, and that 
they are polarized. Motion may cause similar poles to approach within the 
limits of repulsion, when the particle turns and brings its opposite pole in 
contact, the union taking place at a certain angle, and the frame-work thus 
laid out becomes closed in by successive layers of polarized particles, form- 
ing a regular, solid crystal of a hexagonal form. 

The same operation going on in a solution of the same salt, mixed with a 
solution of common salt, exhibits for some time the same process of con- 
struction; but it soon becomes apparent that a solid prismatic crystal will not 
Jorm, and time does not change the condition of the solution. A frame- 
work, or skeleton crystal is built up as before, and possibly the interstices may 
be solidly filled, but there will appear a hexagonal cavity in the centre, repre- 
senting a considerable part of the volume of the crystal. If we carefully seal 
this cavity and remove the crystal, we find the . fluid contents to be a strong 
solution of common salt, and the interior of the crystal has quite finished 
surfaces. ‘The suggestion at once arises that the crystal, having used in its 
structure all the saltpetre within reach, has completed its form with a strong 
solution of common salt. To test the correctness of this supposition, we 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 299 


may substitute a solid body, choosing one, which, from its fineness can be 
diffused uniformly, and we shall find that a pure salt will, by its polarizing 
action on this suspended matter, ji/l its cavity quite closely, and make up its 
true solid crystal in part of clay, Prussian blue, or other bodies. Ranging 
through the ordinary salts, cooling from solutions, or the melted state, macle 
crystals will be obtained almost constantly, while in all cases of slow eva- 
poration and avoidance of those conditions favoring the production of 
macles, solid transparent crystals only form. Employing thus many thou- 
sands of pounds, or only a few grains of salt, the operation of this law of 
polarization extended to contiguous matter is seen, and in the experiments 
alluded to, it was shown that its modified and more complex action gave 
beautiful results. Skeleton crystals, such as sublimates, and snow-flakes, 
and frost-work may be assumed to be solid crystals, at the instant of their 
formation: the vapor, or air, being polarized to fill the vacancies, which 
afterwards appear, gives the beauty and variety so strikingly presented 
by them. 

Mr. Stodder called attention to forms of clay concretion or segregation, 
whieh he saw some years since in Windsor, Ct. 

On the bank of the Farmington River, was a bold, nearly perpendicular 
bluff of the Connecticut valley clay, stratified in horizontal layers of from 
half an inch to an inch, and perhaps two inches in thickness. The divis- 
ional planes between the strata were indurated, perhaps one sixteenth of 
an inch ‘thick, and somewhat harder than the mass of the clay. Exposed 
to the elements the softer clay had been washed out between the hardened 
divisional planes, to the depth of one or two inches. Extending from one 
hardened plane to another, were cylindrical concretions of from one fourth 
to three fourths of an inch in diameter, at various distances apart. The 
bluff, seen in front, presented the appearance of small shelves supported 
by innumerable small columns, many of which had a small hole through 
the centre. They looked as if they might have collected about the root- 
Iets of plants, but it is questionable whether roots would penetrate clay 
to the depth of ten or fifteen fect, or their direction would always be ver- 
tical. 

The columns undoubtedly were not lime and clay like the clay-stones, 
but merely indurated clay, as none of them could be found at the base of 
the bluff, the fallen ones having decomposed. i 


ON THE REACTIONS OF THE ALKALINE SILICATES. 


T. S. Hunt, Esq., of the Canadian Geological Survey, communicates 
the following memoranda to Professor Dana of Silliman’s Journal. He 
says:—I have lately been engaged in studying the reactions of the al- 
kaline silicates with the carbonates of magnesia and iron. We have long 
known that carbonate of lime and alumina have the power to remove 
silicate from a solution of soluble glass; and I find that when a mix- 
ture of silica and carbonate of magnesia is boiled with carbonate of soda, 
the silicate of soda at first formed is decomposed by the magnesian car- 
bonate and the regenerated carbonate of soda is cnabled to dissolve anew 


300. ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


portion of silica, the result being a silicatization of the magnesia through 
the intervention of the alkali. 

With soluble silica (as prepared by igniting the silica from the decom- 
position of an alkaline silicate), this reaction is very rapid, and even when 
pulverized quartz is boiled for several hours with carbonates of soda and 
magnesia, a large amount of magnesian silicate is formed. If we substi- 
tute proto-carbonate of iron and boil it with soluble silica and carbonate 
of soda, there is formed a hydrous silicate of the protoxyd permanent in the 
air. 

It will be apparent that by virtue of the power of earthy carbonates 
to decompose an alkaline silicate, and that of the regenerated carbonate 
of soda to dissolve silica even in the form of quartz, a small amount of 
alkaii may effect the combination of a great quantity of silica with earthy 
bases. 

Suppose a solution of alkaline silicate, which will never be wanting 
among sediments where felspar exists, to be diffused through a mixture 
of siliceous matter and earthy carbonate, and we have with a tempera- 
ture of 212° F. and perhaps less, all the conditions necessary for the con- 
version of the sedimentary mass into pyroxenite, diallage, serpentine, talc, 
rhodonite, all of which constitute beds in our metamorphic strata. Add to 
the above the presence of aluminous matter and you have the elements 
of chlorite, garnet and epidote. We have here the explanation of the 
metamorphism of the Silurian strata of the Green Mountain range, and 
I believe of rock metamorphism in general. 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOLUBILITY OF SALTS. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Professor Sullivan 
read a paper ‘‘On the Solubility of Salts at a Temperature above 100 de- 
grees Centigrade, and on the Action of Saline Solution upon Silicates un- 
der the Influence of Heat and Pressure.” The chief point referred to was 
the fact, as already observed by Cousé, that sulphate of lime is aimost 
totally insoluble in water at a temperature of 150 degrees Cent. At tem- 
peratures above 100 degrees Cent., the salt separating is not the ordinary 
salt with two equivalents of hydrated water, but the one with the two 
equivalents of sulphate of lime and one of water. At a temperature of - 
160 to 170 degrees Cent., the sulphate of lime is deposited in the anhy- 
drous condition —a fact of considerable importance in a geological point 
of view, as showing that anhidrate may be formed even in water at tem- 
perature, which may be readily obtainable in deep seas. He also found 
Labrador felspar exposed in a solution of common salt to a temperature 
of 150 to 200 degrees for a considerable time is decomposed to some extent, 
chloride of calcium being found in the solution. 


VON FUCHS, ON THE FORMATION OF THE PRIMITIVE ROCKS. 


A biographical sketch of the life of Von Fuchs in Silliman’s Journal, thus 
notices the views of this eminent chemist, in regard to the formation of the 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 301 


so-called igneous rocks, — views published originally in 1837, but not here- 
tofore generally accessible to the American public. Fuchs opposed the 
Plutonist and the theory of upheavals, without, however, accepting literally 
docirines of the Neptunists. He reasoned against the view that the crys- 
talline rocks were once in a state of fusion, as follows: using granite as 
the illustration. If granite were once in a molten condition, then as it 
cooled, in the first place, quartz must have crystallized out, and would 
have sunk down through the still molten mass, while felspar and mica 
must have crystallized at a much later stage of the cooling, as the necessary 
result of their different degrees of fusibility. Further, the inclusion of ar- 
senical pyrites, sulphide of antimony, tourmaline, garnet fluor-spar, &c. 
by quartz, is incompatible with the crystallization of the latter from a state 
of fusion. Accordingly the doctrine of upheavals cannot be sustained. In 
enunciating his own views, Fuchs begins with the proposition, that amor- 
phism must precede crystallization, and assumes that originally, the solid 
part of the earth consisted of silica and silicates in the amorphous form, 
while the liquid portions were largely made up of solutions of lime and 
magnesia or their carbonates, in the then existing excess of carbonic acid. 
“This I conceive to have been the primal, or chaotic condition of our 
globe; this may indeed have been preceded by another condition, but to 
this state it must have come before the formation of rocks could begin.” 

The formation of rocks, according to Fuchs, began with the silicates. 
The stupendous crystallization thus induced must have developed light and 
heat. The latter must have acquired great intensity, —even that of ig- 
nition. The products were different as determined by circumstances, 
namely: granite, syenite, porphyry, mica slate, &c., which in fact, as is 
known, pass into each other, and may be included together under the 
term granitic rocks. Also at a later period members of the silicious group 
were formed, but not so perfectly as at first; examples are clay-slate, and 
many sand-stones. The lime-stones and calciferous rocks began to be 
formed simultaneously with the silicious rocks, and the production of both 
ran parallel through all epochs, down to the most recent times. After the 
deposition of carbonate of lime, the vast quantities of carbonic acid which 
had served to hold it in solution, became the material which should espe- 
cially contribute to the sustenance of organic nature. Says Fuchs, “ this acid 
had from the beginning of the creation a three-fold office ; firstly to keep 
the carbonate of lime separated from the silicates, and for a certain time 
to retain it in solution; secondly to furnish the atmosphere with oxygen, 
and thirdly to supply carbon for the production of fossil coal and organic 
bodies. In recent geological times have probably been formed by their 
decomposition, two kinds of products, namely: bituminous, containing 
much hydrogen, and humus-like, containing both hydrogen and oxy- 
gen.” 

Fuchs notices here the objection, that there is not now enough free oxy- 
gen in the atmosphere to form carbonic acid with all the carbon of the 
globe. Accordingly a part of the oxygen originally present must have 
been devoted to other purposes, and he assumes that it was mostly con- 


26 


302 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


sumed at a later period in the formation of gypsum. He supposes that 
before gypsum was formed, there existed the easily soluble hyposulphite 
of lime, and that it passed into gypsum by oxydation. For such a phe- 
nomenon Fuchs offers two explanations, both of which accord with chem- 
ical principles, and one of which at the same time, accounts for the presence 
of free sulphur in the gypsum beds. Lither the hyposulphite of lime might 
be converted into gypsum by immediate oxydation, and the free su!phuric 
acid thereby formed also yicld gypsum, by contact with neighboring car- 
bonate of lime; or the hyposulphite of lime might be resolved into sulphur 
and sulphite of lime, and the latter pass into gypsum by absorption of 
oxygen. 

Instead of the theory of upheaval, Fuchs proposes a theory of collapse, 
since by the crystallization of the amorphous masses they would assume 
a smaller space, and thereby cavities and breaches must be formed, which 
would result in dislocations, and the falling down of large bodies of rock. 
The half solid mass which was not crystallized might then penetrate the 
rifts of the neighboring rock, thus giving origin to veins and dykes. In 
these revolutions however Fuchs also admits certain upheavals. 

The views of Fuchs have found many objectors. Among others Berze- 
lius controverted them and sought to weaken his chicf argument against 
the assumption that the earth was originally in a state of fusion, namely, 
that in such case all lime must exist now as silicate and none as carbonate, 
because at a high temperature silica expels carbonic acid from its combina- 
tions, by asserting that the density of the vast quantity of aqucous vapor 
in the atmosphere at that time would have been sufficient to balance the 
tension of carbonic acid, so that it could remain in combination with lime 
eyen in presence of silica. To this Fuchs replied, that at the fusing point 
of silica, a temperature far higher than that of melted platinum, the tension 
of carbonic acid must be so exalted that the pressure of the atmosphere 
could not have prevented its escape, especially since the tendency of silica 
to combine with lime must have facilitated this separation. 


OBSERVATIONS ON ROCK-SALT. 


We know that when we melt salt it crystallizes on cooling in different 
forms, generally in cubes ; these crystals are more or less confused, opaque, 
and always colored; when common salt or crude rock salt is used, the 
results are different; if salt sensibly pure is calcined and maintained in 
a tranquil state of fusion, and cooled gently, it forms crystals sometimes 
of a considerable size, and perfectly transparent. 

Out of the air we can melt rock-salt such as is found in nature, without 
decolorizing it, that is to say, showing different tints of a grayish, red, 
or brown color; but if the calcination is made in the air, and, as in the 
preceding case, the fusion is tranquil and the cooling slow, the salt is 
completely decolorized, the earthy matters are deposited at the bottom 
of the crucible, the chloride of magnesium decomposes itself spontanccusly, 
and in contact with the moist atmosphere the coloring matters are destroyed 


‘ CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 303 


under the oxidating action of the air, and all the impurities are eliminated by 
the crystallization which has taken place in the mass; there are formed in 
this manner two very distinct layers, which it is easy to separate. 

This operation could perhaps be applied with advantage in purifying crude 
rock salt, as well as ordinary sea salt. 

The fasion of the salt in contact with the air, or out of the air, will explain, 
to a certain extent, how it is that the salt found in the bosom of the earth is 
generally contaminated with coloring matter, and how, on the contrary, that 
which is exposed to the oxidating action of the atmosphere-is white and 
transparent. 

From these facts we cannot determine as to the origin of the formation of 
rock salt, for, by fusion, we can obtain salt having a transparent appearance, 
with physical properties defined ; but the presence of organic remains envel- 
oped in the natural product excludes the probability of its being formed by 
igneous fusion ; besides, it is difficult to imagine, if the mass had really been 
in a state of fusion, why it was that the chloride of magnesium was not de- 
composed. As to the phenomena of decrepitation which has been observed 
to a certain extent in rock salt, the same has been noticed in salt crystallized 
in the wet way, therefore this cannot confirm the hypothesis of igneous for- 
mation. 

Without pretending to decide the question of origin, these experiments 
show a product analogous, if not identical, with natural rock salt — 1. Var- 


gueritte, Comptes [endus. 
NEW AND CURIOUS GUANO PRODUCT. 


At a recent mecting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes exhibited some specimens, resembling Trachyte rock so closely, that 
most observers would have mistaken them for Trachyte. 

The specimens consisted of hand specimens, having the uneven fracture of 
trachyte, full of capillary passages, with some cavities ; there were fractured 
planes of brown and flesh-colored minerals, resembling felspar, and some 
small red, brown-colored and black granuies ; but the most characteristic mark 
was the occurrence of angular fragments and grains of yellowish green color, 
hardly distinguishable from epidote by the eye. The external surface was 
brown and uneven, like that of a weathered basalt, or trap. The island from 
which these specimens came has been examined by a geologist, and from 
the prevalence of this rock, it is said that he pronounced the island to be of 
volcanic origin. A mass was sent to Dr. Hayes, and he found it had struc- 
tural planes, the divisions producing trapezoidal masses, their surfaces and 
the lines marked by darker colors, and, so far as could be determined, there 
was evidence of the mass being part of a rock formation of some extent. 

The chemical composition Ciscloses the remarkable fact that this rock 
is composed essentially of fish bones and altered shells, which have passed 
through the alimentary canals of sea fowls. Referring to communications 
before made,* Dr. Hayes stated that the organic matter of fish bones in the 


* See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1857, pp. 242, 248, 244. 


804 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


droppings of fowl, reacts on the bone phosphate of lime, to eliminate acid 
salts of phosphoric acid, and these cement other portions, or decompose 
shells, which are composed of carbonate of lime and animal tissues. The 
felspar-like granules are generally compact, colored portions of converted 
shells, having a crystalline form, and there are aggregates of ferruginous and 
aluminous phosphates, arising from the same kind of action on ferruginous 
matter, which, in the form of a fine clay, or volcanic ash, has been brought 
within the sphere of the action of the acid phosphates. The cavities some- 
times present minute crystalline facets of phosphate of lime crystals, while 
the capillary channels and pores, which give the trachyte-like character, are 
really the passages through which the carbonic acid and other gases escaped, 
during the transformation of the organic matter, precisely as they occur in 
basalt and trap, where igneous action has been supposed to have been in- 
fluential. 

This rock is covered more or less by Atlantic guano rock, presenting the 
variety which consists of compact, light-colored phosphate of lime, contain- 
ing about twenty parts in one hundred of carbonate of lime, and in some 
parts is a consolidated shell-bank; the recent shells and coral fragments 
being visible. Where, through time and favorable exposure, the bone 
remains have thoroughly decomposed the shells, hand specimens would be 
mistaken for the flesh-colored, massive phosphate of lime of New Jersey. 
These more or less well-cemented and altered rocks are also connected with 
still more recent deposits, retaining even the odorous animal remains of oily 
acids ; and the whole formation, above that of the trachytic form of rock, 
contains the remains of infusoria. 

Thus a small island of the Atlantic, lying about eighteen degrees north of 
the equator, presents us with an epitomized succession of rock strata, formed 
from materials which, once endowed with life, have served to nourish other 
living systems, and then given rise to chemical changes, resulting in the 
production of various mineral solids which remain. 

The trachyte-like rock forming the basis rock of this island, theoretically, 
may have received its geological and chemical characters in ocean water. 
A subsidence of the land, after its surface had been deeply covered with 
organic remains, would allow of that aqueous action of decomposition and 
cementation which we notice, and the subsequent desiccation would explain 
the natural divisions by rents. The formation of silicates of iron, mangan- 
ese, and allumina from phosphates of lime, is a mineralizing process which 
can take place in ocean water by infiltration, volcanic ashes, or divided ma- 
terials of plastic rocks being present, as analysis shows them to be. The 
rock is hydrous, losing nearly ten per cent. of its weight by ignition, or 


Waterwith a little organic matter, jis 0d. -la2 sie «awe sees oop ols ae O00 


Bone Phosphate of Lime,............ xa cans pce lta < ag hea tebe eae aa Ry 2510) 
Garbonpate cf Lime,.....0. .. .<:4ssaeecen TM ONG CARRERE Ree ee ee 
Oxides Iron, Manganese and Alumina,............c0cceccsserseres Oia 


Silicic Acid and SANG i 3 5's 5d bas AOSSS HT BN AEs See 1.78 


105.20 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 305 


The excess of weight being due to the estimation of the phosphoric acid 
united to lime as bone phosphate of lime, while truly part of it, with a por- 
tion of silica, is united to the oxides present. 

These facts prove that mineral masses containing phosphate of lime, may 
be thus formed from animal phosphate of lime, and present all the characters 
wich we recognize in the phosphate of lime contained in the oidest slates. 
Adlitional interest has been given to this subject, by the investigations of 
Pyof. Booth of Philadelphia, and Dr. Piggott of Baltimore, who have ana- 
lyzed specimens, in which the phosphoric acid had combined with both oxide 
of iron and alumina. 


ON THE SOLUBILITY OF BONES IN WATER. 
BY PROFESSOR WOHLER. 


When bone-dust, such as is commonly employed as manure, is left for 
some time in contact with water, and the latter is filtered away, it is found 
to contain appreciable quantities of the phosphates of lime and magnesia. 
The same result is obtained when the water is freed from carbonic acid by 
long boiling. By filtering water for months through the same mass of bone- 
dust, it was found constantly to contain these earthy phosphates, and their 
quantity even appeared to increase in proportion as the organic matter of the 
bones became putrid in consequence of its long contact with water and air, 
and the water flowing off became turbid and offensive. This fact seems to 
have some practical value in agriculture, as it shows that without any arti- 
ficial preparation the earthy phosphates may be extracted from the bones 
and introduced into the soil in a state of solution, perhaps exactly in the 
quantity necessary for their appointed functions, and that in the employment 
of bone-dust as manure, all the preparation necessary is perhaps to lay it in 
heaps during the summer, and keep it constantly moist. — Liebig’s Annalen. 


ON SILICIFICATION AND THE CEMENTING MATERIAL OF CON- 
GLOMERATES. 


In the course of a recent discussion before the Boston Society of Natural 
History, Dr. Hayes stated that he had made a somewhat extended examina- 
tion of the cementing material of the well-known Roxbury conglomerate, 
and found that it was for the most part silicate of lime. There are cases 
where finely-divided slate argilite forms, with silicate of lime, quite large 
quantities of cement, uniting pebbles of considerable size ; but these exhibi- 
tions are only another feature, referable to the action of the same silicious 
compound. The Roxbury conglomerate contains chlorine, and as chloride 
of calcium is readily decomposed by hydrous silica, it might be assumed that 
the silicate of lime was thus formed. But the conglomerate is very fre- 
quently traversed by bold dykes of trap, which contain a large amount of 
sulphuret of iron, and the fissures in the conglomerate, being often filled 
with sublimed quartz, the more probable supposition is, that silicate of lime 
was formed by the transportation of silica in the heated vapor of water. 
Such silica would combine with the lime and alumina of the comminuted 


26* 


306 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


slates, and form the cement at the points where we now find it. Dr. Hayes 
also éxpressed, as his conclusions respecting the silification and consequent 
preservation of organisms, — that the process proceeded, step by step, with 
the change of the organism into gaseous or aqueous matter. The mollusca 
may be considered as simply organizcd water, for one hundred parts by 
weight, often contain ninety-seven parts of water, volatile at 150° F. The 
cell walls of albumino-gelatinous matter are permeable, and the infiltration 
of aqueous solutions of silicate of lime, would displace the water, gradually 
Gepositing silica in a hydrous state, while the lime passed out with the water. 
As consolidation is hastened by the decomposition of the animal matter, the 
ccll walls become changed, and the carbon or humus, in excess over that 
which can become gaseous or aqueous, remains ; retaining as a mere skele- 
ton the forms of the walls. These silicified forms are always porous, and 
the flints contain the carbon of the organic matter, unevenly distributed. As 
a beautiful illustration of silification, he referred to the specimens of trees 
from California, frequently found in the explorations for gold ; many of the 
specimens presenting the sap vessels entire in all their delicate organization 
and nearly natural color, while near by, on the same piece, may be seen 
black portions, in which the organized forms are lost, and the color is deep 
black. ‘This striking diversity is due to the fact that the wood at some 
points had passed into the last stage of humus, — carbon and water, — before 
silification took place, and hence the specimens present us with both silicified 
wood and silicified charcoal. He observed the same changes, though less 
obvious, while examining the highly interesting locality on the Island of 
Antigua. 

Dr. C. T. Jackson remarked that he had examined the materials which 
enter into composition and cementation of sand-stones and conglomerates, 
and had found the cements to be different in different cases. In some, car- 
bonate of lime forms the principal cement, in others, oxide of iron composed 
a large proportion of the cementing matters, and in others, finer particles of 
the same rocks that composed the conglomerate had formed a patse, which 
had been hardened by the agency of heat and by the production of silicate of 
lime derived, undoubtedly, from the decomposition of chloride of calcium. 
Ic stated that when pebbles are moistened with a solution of chloride of cal- 
cium, and then placed in contact and heated, the chlorine of the chloride of 
calcium escapes, and the oxide of calcium or lime unites with the silex and 
forms silicate oflime. There could be no doubt that the chloride of calcium 
was derived from sea-water. Sometimes in the vicinity of trap dykes, as at 
Purgatory, near Newport, Rhode Island, specular iron ore, evidently derived 
from sublimation of oxide of iron from the chloride of iron, had invested the 
pebbles with a thin crystailine film, which served as a cement. 

The cementing materials of some sandstones are so largely calcareous, 
that on removal of the carbonate of lime by the action of acids, the stone 
crumbles into sand. In such sandstones the carbonate of lime was probably 
uuifiltrated as a bi-carbonate, and on losing one equivalent of carbonic acid, 
the carbonate of lime would solidify in crystalline form and firmly unite the 
sand, making it into a solid rock. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 307 


If a sandstone, cemented by carbonate of lime, is exposed to a high tem- 
perature, silicate of lime would be produced by combination of silex with the 
lime, and carbonic acid gas would be disengaged. 


ON THE GASEOUS PRODUCTS OF VOLCANOES. 


The following investigations of the gaseous products of the voleanic moun- 
tains of Italy, were made by M. Deville, in common with Leblanc and Se- 
wy :—1. Gas which was collected in May, June, September and October 
1855, at various points of the stream of lava from the eruption of Vesuvius, 
on May1,1855. The analyses of this gas showed that the gas which issues 
from those fumaroles which have been called dry fumaroles, and which only 
carries with it anhydrous alkaline chlorides and small quantities of sulphates, 
is nothing but a stream of air either unaltered or containing less oxygen, 
thus—20°1 and 20°6 per cent of oxygen were found init. The same is the 
case with the gas loaded with vapors of muriate of ammonia, which was ex- 
pelled from the lower parts of the lava in October. — 2. Gas collected in 
September from the fumaroles on the small plain in the centre of the upper 
crater of Vesuvius. This gave aqueous vapor of the temperature of 140 deg. 
to 174 deg. F., mixed with a little vapor of sulphur and sulphuretted hydro- 
gen. In one sample of this gas 3°51, in another 926 per cent. of carbonic 
acid were found. The remainder was only air, from which nearly all oxy- 
gen was extracted. — 3. Gas collected in September and October, from those 
fumaroles on the summits of Vesuvius and Etna which throw up a mixture 
of aqueous vapor, muriatic acid, and sulphurous acid, at high temperatures, 
194 deg., 257 deg., and 356 deg. F. This again is nothing but air partially 
deprived of oxygen. — 4. Gas collected in September 1855, on the upper 
border of the cone of eruption of Etna (1852). This upper margin, in June, 
still possessed an abundance of fumaroles of sulphuretted hydrogen of 182 
deg. F. In September, they only emitted aqueous vapor of 142 deg. F.; 
which was perfectly neutral, and the vapor was only accompanied by air. 
The constitution of these gases, which escape from the summits of Vesuvius 
and Etna, is such as we might have expected. Air is always intermixed 
with the gases; and the emanations of carbonic acid, sulphur, sulphuretted 
hydrogen, muriatic acid, and sulphurous acid, are products such as the cleft 
crater must furnish in the same way as a cracked chimney over a fire. — 
5. Gas collected on the 5th and 22d of October, in the Lago di Naftia or Lae 
di Palici in Sicily. The composition of this gas varies with time. In none 
of the gases could a combustible gas be detected. — With reference to the 
solid productions of the eruption of 1855: two kinds of lava flowed out in 
this eruption. The one which made its appearance last is dark, as it were 
furnished with a glassy coating, and has no action upon the magnet; while 
the other kind is gray, much more crystalline, and strongly magnetic. Both 
contain nearly the same amount of iron, so that the iron is not contained in 
the same form in the lavas. ‘The one contains 1:4, the other 2:2 per cent. of 
phosphoric acid. Both contain some chlorine, a portion of which is as it 
were mixed in the form of a soluble chloride, whilst another portion is not 
washed out with water, but only obtained by the decomposition of the mine- 


308 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFI DISCOVERY. 


ral with bisulphate of potash. Phosphoric acid is always present, and so 
also is chlorine, which constitutes about 3-1000ths of the lava examined. 
Chlorine is also found in the rocks of Puraci, in an amphigenous stratum of 
the Somma, and in a slag-like stratum of the same mountain. The felspar 
of the lavas of Vesuvius appears to be amphigenous, and is distinguished 
from that of the Somma by its only containing traces of soda; while in the 
felspar of the lava of 1855, the oxygen of the soda is in the proportion to that 
of the potash as 2:09: 1. This proportion in the mineral of Fasso-grande is 
8°21: 1, and in the amphigenous perfect crystals which were thrown out of 
the volcano on the 22d of June, 1°67 : 1 according to Damour. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF SULPHURET OF CARBON FOR INDUSTRIAL 
PURPOSES. 

In a communication to the French Academy on the above subject, M. Dietz 
commences by stating, that in 1840 the price of sulphuret of carbon was 
as high as from fifty to sixty francs the kilogramme; but that soon after- 
wards he reduced its price so greatly that in 1848 it sold at eight francs the 
kilogramme for the purpose of vulcanizing India-rubber. At present, with 
an apparatus composed of three retorts, he is able to manufacture the im- 
mense quantity of 500 kilogrammes of sulphuret of carbon in twenty-four 
hours ; although scarcely a year ago, with the same furnace, the same re- 
torts, and the same amount of fuel, he could only produce 150 kilogrms. in 
the same time. The product now costs him only 50 centimes the kilo- 
gramme, and he has no doubt that, by operating on a larger scale, it might 
soon be sold at 40 francs per 100 kilogrms. As, however, this substance has 
at present only a very limited employment in the vulcanization of India- 
rubber, the author having a large quantity on his hands, naturally desired to 
find some other purpose to which it might be applied ; and considers that he 
has discovered one of the greatest importance, namely, the extraction of fatty 
matters. 

He states that Paris daily produces 30,000 kilogrms. of bones, which are 
collected by the chiffoniers and carried to the manufactories of ivory-black 
and gelatine. Here they are sorted, some being devoted to the production 
of ivory-black, others of gelatine, whilst some are sold to the workers in 
bone. The greater part of them (25,000 kilogrms. daily) are employed in 
the manufacture of ivory-black ; but these undergo a preliminary treatment 
for the extraction of their fatty matter. The bones are broken and boiled 
with water, for about threc hours, in large caldrons ; the fat floats on the 
surface ace is skimmed off; the bones are taken and thrown into a heap, to 
undergo a kind of fermentation, in which the production of heat induces a 
state of desiccation which fits the bones for calcination. 

In these operations the bone undergoes a great alteration: the long boil- 
ing in water dissolves a great portion of the gelatine, which is necessary for 
the production of a good black ; and the fermentation and long exposure to 
the air causes the almost total destruction of the animal matter, so that a 
bad black is produced for the sake of only 5 or 6 per cent. of fat. 

The author states that much more advantageous results may be obtained 
by the employment of sulphuret of carbon. He proposes to crush the 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 309 


bones almost to powder; then to treat them with this agent, which almost 
instantly dissolves all the grease contained in them; and from this it may 
be separated by distillation, which is greatly facilitated by the low tempcra- 
ture at which this fluid boils, and the ease with which it may be condensed. 
The quantity of grease thus obtained is 10 or 12 per cent., and it is superior 
to that procured by boiling. 

He adds, that the same agent may be applied to the extraction of oils from 
oleaginous seeds and of the grease from wool. In the latter case the grease 
extracted becomes a useful product; it is a butyraceous substance, adapted 
for the manufacture of some kinds of soap, 


ON SOME NEW METHODS OF TREATING LINSEED OIL. 


The following is an abstract of a paper recently read before the Society of 

Arts, London, by Mr. C. Binks : 

Linseed oil appears in four different forms: 1st, the oil in its natural 
state, called raw oil; 2ndly, this raw oil refined, or from which has been sepa- 
rated its mucilage and coloring matter; 3rdly, the raw oil boiled, that is, 
made or intended to be made more drying than the original oil ; and 4thly, 
the raw oil put into a variety of conditions as to thickness, color, ete. The 
strongest oil used by the artist’s color-maker the writer found to consist 
chemically of a solution, in any excess of oil, of the oleate of lead, which 
had obviously been made by heating raw oil along with litharge and water, 
and afterwards expelling, by heat, the excess of water used. This kind dried, 
per se, in fifteen hours. 

The refined oil, in paint-making, is employed chiefly as the vehicle in 
which to grind white pigments. The raw oil is used to thin and prepare for 
use the finer kinds of paints, from which boiled oil is excluded by its dark 
color and after-effects. The raw oil is, of itself, a very slow drier. The re- 
fined is still more imperfect in this respect ; and hence, to quicken the work 
of the operative painter, arises the necessity for using, along with these-two, 
spirits of turpentine or the compositions called driers. 
~ The clear oil produced after boiling, even when from the very best makers, 
always contains a considerable quantity of lead, and is dark-colored — al- 
most black, and does not, on exposure to air, materially bleach. Its rate of 
drying, per se, is, on an average of the best kinds, fifteen hours; but more 
generally ranges between twenty-four hours and sixty hours. 

The oil-boiling trade is divided chiefly between two classes :—the paint 
manufacturers and grinders, who boil oil for their own use and for their own 
sale; and the oil boilers and refiners, who receive from the oil merchants 
and from consumers — not themselves boilers —the raw oil, put it through 
the operation, and return it at a certain charge per ton. 

The problem is to take the raw oil and give it an efficient rate of drying 
property, that can be modified at pleasure; t6 give to it any color, ranging 
between dark brown and straw color; and to give to it any required degree 
of limpidity or viscidity that will fit the multifarious requirements of the 
manufacturer and artist. 


310 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


To test the drying rate of an oil, or of an oil mixed with some material 
to dry it, it is simply necessary to spread it upon the surface of glass, and 
expose it to the atmosphere, and to note the time occupied in its passing 
from its fluid to a solid state; and the circumstance that on its being 
touched with the finger, and neither adhering to it on remoyal, nor resisting 
its removal, is taken as evidence of its being dry. The drying rate of an 
oil is materially affected by temperature — the hygrometric condition of the 
atmosphere, by its state as to stillness or motion, and by the presence or ab- 
sence of sunlight, etc. An oil that in a warm, breezy summer’s day will 
dry in eight or ten hours, may not dry in less than sixteen or twenty when 
the air is fogey and motionless ; and in an unfavorable winter’s day may not 
dry in less than from twenty-four to thirty hours. 

The practical results of a vast number of experiments made by the writer 
are thus given: 

When an oil or an oil paint, on exposure to air, dries, four distinct kinds 
of action come into play, to effect, or contribute to that result. These are— 

Firstly. — The chemical actions taking place naturally between the oil and 
the atmosphere, or the natural chemical action consequent on exposure. 

Secondly. — Those due to some specific chemical action upon the oil of 
some clement in the pigment, or the znduced chemical action, as contra-dis- 
tinguished from the natural. 

Thirdly. — Those due to the peculiar physical structure of the composition 
of the paint, through which, within the same superficial area, a larger surface 
of the oilis brought under the action of atmospheric agencies. 

Fourthly. — Purely mechanical actions, brought about by molecular dis- 
turbances in the oil or paint, by which fresh particles of the oil or fresh sur- 
faces of it are being, during the time of exposure, continually thrown up to 
the action of the atmosphere. 

In any instance of an oil or a paint drying, the influences at play to con- 
tribute to that result can be traced to one or other, but most frequently to the 
combined effect of two, or of all of those kinds of actions. 

The experiments showed that the hydrated protoxides of certain metals 
pre-eminently exercise a specific drying action on the oil. The hydrated 
protoxides of iron, of nickel, of cobalt, and of manganese, are the most re- 
markable of the class ; but it is through the latter (i. e., the hydrated protox- 
ide of manganese) that all the singular and happy effects upon the oil are to 
be practically accomplished. The addition to the oil of only from three to 
five parts of the hydrated protoxide of manganese to 1,000 of the oil, gives 
birth to peculiar ¢hanges; and, by the simplest of methods of after treat- 
ment, this chemical fact is made applicable to the production of any required 
kind of drying oil. 

Arrangements for manufacturing drying oils on this principle have been 
adopted, under the writer’s direction. 

The oil, used in very large*quantity at a time, is mixed with hydrated 
protoxide of manganese, or materials yielding that, in quantity ranging be- 
tween five pounds and fourteen pounds to the ton, and the oil warmed up 
to from 100 to 150 deg. Fah. In a very short time — ten or twenty minutes 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 311 


— the oil loses its peculiar yellow color, passing through a greenish into a 
brownish tint, whilst the oxide disappears, being dissolved in the oil. In 
this state of “solution,” as it is called, the oil has already had given to it, 
by this simple, rapid, and inexpensive operation, a very considerable amount 
of drying power, and is fit in this state, to be applied to a multitude of 
purposes. 


: ON A NEW SULPHIDE OF CARBON (CS) 


As yet only one sulphide of carbon has been known to exist, namely, CS?, 
corresponding to carbonic acid CO”. A protosulphide CS corresponding to 
carbonic oxide CO has never been obtained. At a recent meeting of the 
French Academy, M. Baudriment,announced its discovery, and gave the fol- 
lowing brief account of its preparation and properties :— 

Protosulphide of carbon may be obtained by the following processes :—Ist, 
By decomposing the vapor of ordinary bisulphide of carbon with spongy 
platinum, or with pumicestone, heated to redness ; under these circumstances, 
the bisulphide is decomposed, an abundant deposit of sulphur takes place, 
which often chokes up the tube, and a gaseous body is formed, which is the 
protosulphide of carbon CS. This well defined reaction is sufficiently ex- 
plicit. 2d, It is obtained simultaneously with the bisulphide when that body 
is prepared by the ordinary method. 3d, By decomposing the vapor of CS? 
at a red heat with pure lampblack or wood charcoal, but especially with frag- 
ments of animal charcoal. 4th, By decomposing the vapor of the bisul- 
phide with hydrogen at a red heat. 5th, By calcining sulphide of antimony 
with an excess of charcoal. 6th, By the reaction of carbonic oxide upon 
sulphuretted hydrogen at a red heat. 

CO+HS=HO-+CS. 

The first process yields the gas in a state of purity ; but when obtained by 
the other methods, it is contaminated with sulphide of hydrogen or carbonic 
oxide. It may, however, be purified from those by being rapidly passed 
through a solution of acetate of lead, chloride of copper dissolved in hydro- 
chloric acid, and then drying the gas collected over mercury. 

This body is gascous, colorless, and possesses on odor, reminding one of 
ordinary sulphide of carbon, but not disagreeable, and strongly ethereal. 
Respired in any large quantity, it appears to be powerfully anesthetic. It 
burns with a bright blue flame, producing carbonic acid and sulphurous 
acid, with a little sulphur. Its density is a litile greater than carbonic acid. 
It resists the cold-produced mixture of ice and salt. Water dissolves about 
its own volume of it, but the solution rapidly decomposes into sulphuretted 
hydrogen and carbonic oxide. It is not more soluble in alcohol or ether. 

At a red heat it is fecbly decomposed — Ist, by a spongy platinum; 2d, 
by the vapor of water into HS and CO; 3d, very readily by hydrogen into 
HS and CH; 4th, by copper into graphitoid carbon and sulphide of cop- 
per; and, finally, by exposure to the sun with an equal volume of chlorine, 
a reaction takes place, a partial condensation and formation of compounds, 


312 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


which I am at present investigating. Analyzed by oxygen in the endiome- 
ter, it gives equal volumes of carbonic acid and sulphurous acid, from 
which we may deduce the formula CS as representing its composition. 

Many chemists have attempted to discover this body; and its having es- 
caped their investigation, is attributable, without doubt, to its reaction upon 
water and the solutions of the alkalies, which resolve it into carbonic oxide 
and sulphuretted hydrogen. — Coimptes Rendus. 


ON THE CHEMISTRY OF WINES. 


Mulder, the celebrated German chemist, has published during the past 
year an interesting contribution to popular science, entitled the ‘‘ Chemistry 
of Wine.” Referring to the little progress which has yet been made in the 
accurate analysis of the various kinds of wine, he says: — The almost un- 
limited variety which is peculiar to wine, and depends entirely upon varia- 
tions in the constituents of the wine, has never been traced back to its cause ; 
and further, many methods of determining even the most ordinary vinous 
ingredients are still imperfect, and must be replaced by others. Lastly, there 
are many adulterations practised upon wine, which keep pace with the ex- 
tension of chemical knowledge, and which have been as yet by no means 
sufficiently explained. We have only to consider the immense multitude of 
wines, all differing in color, odor, flavor, to be satisfied that an exact chemi- 
cal knowledge of them must be almost impossible. The compositicn differs 
according as the wine is red, or not red. In the last mentioned, no particu- 
lar coloring matters are found, and only a trace of tannic acid; in the for- 
mer both are present. Alcohol and water are also among the principal in- 
gredients, then sugar, gum, extractive and albuminous matters; then free 
acids, such as tartaric, racemic, malic, and acetic acid, tartrate of potash, of 
lime, and of magnesia, sulphate of potash, common salt, and traces of phos- 
phate of lime; also, and especially in cellared wines, substances which im- 
part aroma, as cenanthic and acetic ether, in variable proportions, and other 
volatile matters. In red wines and in many others, a little iron, and, 
according to one statement, some alumina, may also be detected. Lastly, 
the best wines contain, according to Fauré, a peculiar substance, which he 
calls cenanthine. These ingredients vary exceedingly in proportion. The 
quantity of some is so insignificant, that the substance almost disappears 
during analysis. The quantity of some may be determined by weight, and 
of others again is still greater. Most of the properties of wine depend upon 
the sugar, alcohol, tartaric acid, and water, which exist together in it; that 
is, putting aside taste and smell as standards of comparison. By a com- 
paratively rough analysis the proportions of the chief ingredients may be 
ascertained, but no chemistry can detect the formation or exhibit the exist- 
ence of the aroma which gives to some wines their fabulous value. Science 
can investigate the organic constituents and point out the relation between 
the ingredients of the soil and the vegetable structure, but science is unable 
to bring the structure of plants into connection with the nature of their special 
products. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 313 


It is not strange that the grapes which grow on the sunny side of the 
Johannisberg should be very superior, as far as the flavor and fragrance of 
their juice is concerned, to those produced on the opposite side of the moun- 
tain ; nor that, in general, a hotter and stronger wine is produced in warm 
regions than in such as are cold or temperate. If we add to this, that the 
peculiar nature of the soil, its constituents, the influx and drainage of water, 
the lightness or stiffness of the ground in which the roots spread; that, 
further, the dryness or dampness of the air, and the change or equality of 
temperature, exercise a well known influence upon plants and the fruits pro- 
duced by them, we shall at least have a general idea of the varieties of 
the juice which constitute the principal element of these berry-bearing 
fruits. 

It is, moreover, sufficiently known that there is a general difference in the 
color of grapes, between black, purple or red, and white ; the juice of both 
is colorless, and colorless wine can therefore be obtained from both. If the 
black, purple, or red grapes are pressed, and the skins thrown aside, a color- 
less wine, which in substance equals that procured from the juice of the 
white grape, is obtained by fermentation. Isay substantially, for the variety 
in the juices, which even a slight difference in the external influences occa- 
sions, would effectually prevent the one fermented liquid from equalling the 
other in flavor and aroma. Or is it, perhaps, that the heat of the sun pene- 
trates more thoroughly the purple grape, while its dark skin partially pre- 
serves it from the action of light ? 

Is then, the same chemical action possible to the juice of the purple grape 
(inclosed, as it were, in a small bladder) as that which is produced in the 
juice of the white grape by the difference between these two powerful influ- 
ences, heat and light? We know that in our regions the white grapes are 
much sweeter than the purple, and ascribe this peculiarity to the difference 
of the plants, but forgct that in the easier passage of the light through the 
colorless skin of the white grape we possess a sufficient explanation of a 
more powerful chemical action, the result of which may be a larger forma- 
tion of sugar. And if we generally find the purple grapes inferior in flavor 
and smell, we must ascribe this circumstance to heat, which in this case 
penetrates more easily the skin of the grape, and which in all living things 
is a powerful means of exciting chemical action. 

The opinion that wine which has grown old in bottles has therefore become 
richer in alcohol, is thoroughly false. Ido not deny that the alcoholic con- 
tents of many old wines is considerable, but I deny that the wine being kept 
in bottles increases it. Evaporation is very much hindered by the cork, even 
when it is not covered with resin and sealing wax. ‘The sugar which exists, 
for example, in red wine, is in too insignificant a quaniity to evolve alcohol 
by means of fermentation ; and in old wine, the opening of the bottle causes 
no escape of carbonic acid. ‘Therefore, the formation of alcohol in the bot- 
tles is impossible. The simple explanation of our finding old wine rich in 
alcohol is, that on'y the stronger wines can be preserved, and the weaker 
ones cannot resist the effects of time. The color of wine is materially 
affected by another change which it undergoes when cclizred (I am sup- 


27 


814 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


posing it to be in bottles). The color of liqueur-wines becomes darker, but 
such wines as are rich in tannic acid, port, for example, deposit a sediment, 
and become lighter. Red-wines, which contain no large amount of tannic 
acid, generally grow darker. The details, which must be mentioned, in 
order to explain this change, will be better understood when we come to 
consider more particularly the coloring matter of wine. With regard to the 
fact just mentioned, that wines which are not rich in tannic acid, acquire a 
darker color, I will only observe that the diminution of free acid in the wine 
(be it tartaric or acetic) is always connected with this appearance, for the 
red hue is the effect of free acid, and the decrease of such acid allows the 
coloring matter to appear more purple. 

Corking is an operation that may seriously affect the chemistry of wine, 
and the mischief resulting from the growth of mould, causing a musty 
flavor, is so frequent, that the professor expresses surprise that other con- 
trivances are not adopted for excluding the air. 

“Tt really seems strange that in this age, when so many other means can 
be employed, cork should still be made use of to stop bottles. The moist 
cork, one side of which is in contact with the air, allows, equally with the 
wood of ths wine-cask, the development of mould plants. The taste and 
smell of wine is, under such circumstances, identical with that of many 
other mouldy substances, and is what we call musty. The mould of cork 
differs of course from that of wood, and the taste is consequently not exactly 
the same. The smell may be distinctly perceived in almost every ware- 
house in the country. The mould grows from the outside to the inside, and 
should it reach the inner side of the cask or cork it imparts a taste to the 
wine. On this account old wine casks must from time to time be cleansed 
outside and inside, and new corks must be put into the bottles, even when 
the old ones are unhurt. If the inside of the cork be covered with resin or 
sealing-wax, the entrance of the air is cut off, and the formation of mould 
hindered, though not prevented. Wines which have been long in bottle often 
acquire an unpleasant taste from this mouldiness; they are brought out to 
do honor to a guest, and praise is expected, which cannot honestly be 
given.” 


IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE AND PREPARATION OF 
FAT, OILS, EFC. 

Production of Stearine and Oleine.— A patent has been recently granted in 
England to Mr. Hills, for improvements in the production of Stearine and 
Otcine. His methed consists in mixing the fat, heated to 110° Fah., with 
ten per cent. dry sulphate of lime, chloride of calcium, or other suitable sub- 
stance capable of absorbing water; then adding five per cent. hydrochloric 
or nitric acid, and stirring the whole together for an hour; water is then 
added, and heated, by means of steam, to the boiling point, until the acid is 
entirely separated from the fat, when it is run off and melted to separate 
water, and pressed to separate oleine. A stream of hydrochloric acid gas or 


nitric acid vapor may be used instead of the liquid acids and sulphate of 
lime or chloride of calcium. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 315 


Castor Oil.— M. Berris, a French chemist, has recently pointed out 
several new uses for castor oil, which will undoubtedly increase its commer- 
cial value. He says: 

“By distilling castor oil upon concentrated potash, the sebacic acid and 
caprylic alcohol are extracted as separate products, which may be turned to 
good account. The scbacic acid, having a high meliinz point, may be em- 
ployed, instead of stearic acid, in the manufacture of candles, and if it be 
mixed with stearic acid, the hardness and quality of the candles are greatly 
improved, and in appearance they resemble porcelain. It is possible to use 
caprylic alcohol in all the purposes to which ordinary alcohol is put, par- 
ticularly in illumination, and in the composition of varnishes, and from it 
ceriain other compounds may be derived, of remarkable odor, similar to 
those which are at present largely used in commerce.” 

The cultivation of the Palma-Christa plant, which produces the sceds 
from which castor oil is pressed, has been somewhat extensive in this coun- 
try, particularly in Ilincis; but owing to the limited use of castor oil, the 
demand has not been large enough to warrant extensive planting. But its 
application to other purposes may inerease the demand and make its culti- 
vation profitable; as it would be at one dollara bushel for the seeds, in 
many places south of latitude 40°, up to which point the plant matures with- 
out much danger of frost, and although it grows much larger further south, 
it does not afford as great a yield in Mississippi as it does nearer the north- 
ern limit of its growth. 

Nuisances arising from Tallow and Soap-works. — The question whether it 
is practicable to prevent the obnoxious smell produced in the melting of tal- 
low and in soap-boiling, has recently been examined specially by Hrn. 
Grodhaus and Fink, in consequence of complaints that have been urged 
against the proprietors of candle and soap-works in Hesse Darmstadt. 
Professor Stein, Dresden, has made experiments on this subject, and recom- 
mended the tallow to be covered with a layer of charcoal while melting. 
This plan was tried, but without satisfactory results. rn. Grodhaus and 
Fink recommend passing the vapor into the furnace a few inches above the 
bars, so that it may be burnt and carried away by the draught of the chim- 
ney; or passing it else into the chimney itself. For this purpose the melt- 
ing vessel is to be covered with a closely-fitting wooden lid, furnished with a 
tube, passing either into the furnace or the chimney. By this means it was 
found that, with arrangements of apparatus, otherwise similar to what are 
generally employed in candle and soap-works, the offensive smell could be 
prevented, whether the fat was melted dry over the open fire, or by the aid 
of high pressure steam. An attempt was made to pass the vapor, when 
melting by steam, through the fire, but it was found to put out the fire, 
although this was not the case when the vapor was passed into the furnace 
over the burning fucl. 


ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF GLYCERINE. 


Wurtz has succeeded in preparing glycerine artifically from the tribromid 
of allyl, C°H®B'*, which is obtained by the action of bromine upon the iodide 


316 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of allyl, C®H®I, iodine being set free. The bromid is a heavy colorless 
liquid which, at a temperature below ten degrees centigrade, crystaliizes in 
beautiful colorless prisms. By the action of this bromid dissolved in acetic 
acid upon acetate of silver an oily liquid was obtained, boiling at 268° centi- 
grade, neutral, colorless, and heavier than water. This liquid is triacetine, 
CHO". By saponification with baryta-water, acetate of baryta and gly- 
cerine were formed. The latter was identified by its properties and by 
analysis. — Comptes Rendus, xliv. 780. 


SOLVENT PROPERTIES OF GLYCERINE. 


Advantage is being taken of the solvent and preservative properties of 
glycerine, in the preparation of medicines, both for internal and external 
use, and of various essences for culinary purposes. Glycerine approaches 
very nearly to diluted alcohol in its solvent power. It is supposed to pos- 
sess the same power of supporting nutrition as cod-liver oil, and to be more 
easily digested in many cases. This, however, requires the confirmation of 
experience. Many specimens have been sent us of medicines prepared with 
it, such as iodide of iron, quinia, iodide of quinia, carbonate of iron, iodine, 
tannin, perphosphate of iron, etc. The culinary preparations are essence 
of cloves, essence of cinnamon, lemon juice, lemon flavoring, etc. The 
flavor is well preserved. It is extremely probable that in many cases glyce- 
rine will supersede alcohol as a solvent and preservative. — Med. Times and 
Gaz. 

A correspondent of the London Society of Arts, in Guatemala, also re- 
commends glycerine as an invaluable remedy for insect bites. 


ON THE COMPOSITION OF DISINFECTING POWDERS. 


At a late meeting of the London Society of Arts, Dr. Smith, of Manches- 
ter, communicated the results of some important researches made by him- 
self and Mr. M’Dougall on disinfecting agents. An examination of the 
various bases was first made. Of these, magnesia was found to be the most 
valuable as a disinfecting agent, forming an insoluble ammoniacal salt, and 
one which naturally exists in the economy of vegetation. On a similar 
comparison of the acids, the sulphurous proved the most efficient; its disin- 
fectant power equalling that of chloride without decomposing the ammonia ; 
a natural constituent of the soil being also the result of its action. A com- 
bination of the base and acid in the form of sulphite of magnesia was next 
tried with signal success, a slight odor, however, still yemaining. The 
known influence of phenic or carbolic acid (one of the products of coal-tar) 
led them to combine five per cent. of it with the salt previously employed. 
By this means a disinfecting powder was produced, which has proved re- 
markably efficient in all instances where it has hitherto been tried ; in dis- 
tricts infested with fever, and in cases of far advanced decomposition. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 317 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF FERROCYANIDE OF POTASSIUM FOR THE 
REMOVAL OF RUST-SPOTS IN WHITE LINEN. 


The employment of ferrocyanide of potassium may often help us out of 
great difficulties in the case of rust-spots in linen. These do not always 
consist of common hydrated oxide of iron, but also frequently of oleate of 
iron, which can only be removed with difficulty, and with the assistance of 
heat, by oxalic acid, or the binoxalate of potash; and often not at all by 
sulpruric or muriatic acid, for these acids can only be applied cold and very 
dilute, as otherwise the linen suffers. From the high price of oxalic acid, 
therefore, a cheap means is wanting, when a great quantity of such iron 
moulds is to be destroyed. A case of this kind once occurred to the 
author, in which sulphate of iron had been used instead of potash, by which 
three hundred napkins and other table lined all acquired a rusty yellow color, 
which, on being washed with soap, instead of disappearing, became darker ; 
the sulphate of iron being decomposed by the soap, and oleate of iron pre- 
cipitated upon the fibres. 

Immersion even for several days in water acidulated with sulphuric and 
muriatic acids produced no effect, because the oleate of iron was not decom- 
posed. It was here that the ferrocyanide of potassium did such excellent 
service. It was added in comparatively small quantity to the water, acidu- 
lated with sulphuric acid, and the linen was then moved about in the fluid. 
The linen became blue. When all the yellow had disappeared, and a clear 
blue had made its appearance, the linen was rinsed and treated with solu- 
tion of carbonate of potash. Here the blue color again disappeared, and 
with it a great part of the yellow, which only remained in spots. These 
were then very easily got rid of by dilute sulphuric acid alone. 

The explanation of this process is easy. By the formation of Prussian 
blue, the oleic acid is separated from the oxide of iron. The carbonate of 
potash then brought into action combines with the oleic acid, decomposes 
the Prussian blue, and at the same time also dissolves the greater part of the 
oxide of iron, so that almost all the iron mould disappears from the stuff 
simultaneously with the Prussian blue. Caustic ley does not act in the-same 
way ; it certainly destroys the blue, but the rusty yellow remains, because it 
has not the same solvent action upon oxide of iron as carbonate of potash. 
— Prof. Runge, Polyt. Centraibl. 1857, p. 542. 


ON THE APPLICATION OF ANZSTHETICS. 


At a recent meeting of the French Academy M. Heurteloup read a paper 
on the application of anesthetics. When ether or chloroform is adminis- 
tered by means of a sponge held at a short distance from the nostrils there is 
no ascertaining the quantity inhaled, since the breath of the patient or the 
slightest draught may cause the vapor to deviate. Moreover, in spreading 
and mixing with the ambient air it may cause convulsive coughs and other 
inconveniences ; and sometimes, after long and fruitless efforts to produce 
stupefaction, this effect is suddenly obtained to an alarming degree, ending, 


zt* 


318 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


perhaps, in death. All this, M. Heurteloup observes, is owing to the impos- 
sibility, under the present system, of regulating the application of the 
anesthetic, to remedy which inconvenience he proposes an apparatus of his 
own invention, consisting of a glass tube, having each of its orifices closed 
with cork, into which another tube of a smaller diameter is inserted. One 
of the latter communicates by means of a flexible tube with a reservoir con- 
taining chloroform, which is blown into the larger tube by a small pair of 
bellows. The chloroform passes thence into the tube at the opposite ex- 
tremity, which ends in a point, leaving the smallest possible aperture for 
the escape of the vapor. It is through this aperture the patient inhales the 
anzsthetic, which issues in a conical form, expanding as it rises, and mixing 
with the air; so that as the apparatus is brought nearer to or removed from 
the nostrils of the patient the power of the anesthetic is increased or dimin- 
ished at will, and the operator may stop or resume its emission by stopping 
or renewing the action of the bellows. 

A correspondent of the London Medical Times writes as follows: Ever 
since Dr. J. Y. Simpson made the qualities of this powerful agent known, I 
have been in the habit of using it freely in an extensive general practice ; 
and, although I have used it at least one thousand times, I have never seen 
the least bad consequences follow from it, and I consider that this success 
depends greatly on the precaution I take before administering the chloroform ; 
this simply consists in administering a glass of spirits or wine. I prefer the 
former, even for ladies. The wine, or spirits, seems to exercise no effect on 
the chloroform, while their stimulating quality keeps up the action of the 
heart during the time the patient is under chloroform, and prevents sinking. 
I had occasion, some years ago, to perform a slight surgical operation on a 
lady who was fearfully afflicted with asthma, and excessively nervous. Her 
husband being a medical man, objected to the use of the chloroform in such 
a case, but I assured him that the wine would prevent any evil happening. 
The operation was performed, the patient saved from the pain of it, and to 
her great relief she had no return of asthma for a long time, and when it did 
return she had recourse to the chloroform, which, again for a time, gave her 
great relief. 


NEW ANZSTHETIC AGENTS. 


Several new agents have recently been proposed for replacing ether and 
chloroform in anesthesis. The principal of these is Amylene. 

This substance is said to have been discovered some fifteen years ago by 
M. Cahours, though first described in 1844, by M. Balard, professor of 
chemistry to the Faculty of Sciences of Paris. It is composed of ten atoms 
of carbon and ten of hydrogen, and bears the same relation to fusel oil or 
amylic alcohol that olefiant gas or ethylene bear to common alcohol. 

It is made by distilling fusel oil, or amylic alcohol, with chloride of zine. 
On adding the fusel oil to a concentrated solution of chloride of zine in the 
cold, solution or admixture does not take place, but on applying heat they 
mix and form a homogeneous liquid, which begins to distil at a temperature 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 319 


of about 266 deg. Fah. On re-distilling the product thus obtained, the 
ebullition which commences at 140 deg. Fah., rises during the process to 
about 570 deg. Fah. The most volatile parts of this distillation are to be 
separated, and agitated with concentrated sulphuric acid, when the amylene 
in a pure state will rise to the surface. It is colorless, very mobile, and has 
a low specific gravity (stated by Dr. Snow to be 0°659 at 56 deg. Fah.). 
lis boiling point is 102 deg. Fah., and the density of its vapor is 2°45. It 
has a peculiar and disagreeable smell. 

Amylene was first applied as anesthetic by Mr. John Snow, and for a 
time was recommended as preferable to ether and chloroform in producing 
stupefaction or anesthesia, on the special ground that its employment was 
unattended with danger to the patient, or nearly so. MM. Foucher and 
Bonnet have, however, in a recent communication, addressed to the French 
Academy, recorded facts leading to quite a contrary result. In twelve ex- 
periments performed on rabbits they have ascertained that the anzsthetic 
effect of amylene is produced within from three to six minutes after its ap- 
plication. Before stupefaction is produced the animal utters piercing cries 
and throws its head backwards ; its breathing is accelerated, the globe of the 
eye is strongly injected, and moves convulsively; a tracheal hoarseness 
always accompanying the above symptoms. The period of insensibility 
does not last long if the application of amylene be not continued ; in the 
contrary case, however, a complete collapse takes place; the animal, 
stretched out without motion, obeys every impulse of the hand, and resem- 
bles a flabby mass in which breathing is hardly perceptible. This state may 
last twenty minutes without causing death. The blood drawn from the ar- 
teries during this period still preserves its usual color. Animals subjected to 
the action of amylene for a certain length of time, continue after the opera- 
tion in a state of stupor and imbecility, which sometimes lasts seven or eight 
hours ; but in none of the cases observed by the authors of the communica- 
tion has death followed the application of amylene. The conclusions re-* 
sulting from their experiments are as follows:— 1. Sulphuric ether, chloro- 
form, and amylene are, of all volatile substances experimented on, the only 
ones that produce anesthesia. 2. Amylene does not produce stupefaction 
unless the quantity of air with which it is diluted be very small; but then it 
acts upon the animal econqmy, and especially upon the respiratory organs 
in a manner which may produce dangerous effects. 3. Chloroform has all 
the advantages of amylene, without the evils which accompany the use of 
the latter. 4. None of the substances above mentioned produce anesthesia, 
whether local or general, when applied to any particular part of the body by 
injection under the skin. : 

From these and other results it may be considered as certain, that amy- 
lene is no better than aldchyde artificial oil of naphtha, Dutch liquid, and 
other bodies of the class of ethers, or hydrocarbons, which have been 
proved to be inferior to chloroform. 

Anesthesis by the Oxide of Carbon.— This gas is used only externally, and 
on the diseased part. From the experiment by the unfortnnate Chenot on 
himself, we know that internally it is a poison. According to the trials of M. 


3290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Tourdis, of the Faculty of Medicine of Strasbourg, and aftewards of Dr. 
Ozanam, it has no effect when applied to the skin, unless the epidermis has 
been previously removed. But when applied to the skin from which the 
epidermis is removed, or to a wound or sore, it acts efficaciously and pro- 
duces perfectly the anesthetic effect ; and in the cliniss at Strasbourg, satis- 
factory results have been obtained. We add that ammonia appears to be an 
antidote to oxide of carbon. 

Anesthesis by Carbonic Acid. — A physician at Paris, Dr. Follin, has re- 
cently endeavored to alleviate pain by means of a continued stream of car- 
bonic acid gas. After the discovery of gases by chemistry, towards the close 
of the last century, medical men in England carly undertook to examine the 
curvative properties of different gases. The first experiments were made by 
Ingenhousz. He made known that a finger, when the epidermis was re- 
moved, had the pain increased by oxygen, but diminished, and after a 
while removed by nitrogen, carbonic acid, or hydrogen. This fact, accord- 
ing to this author, was then known in France, where it had been first 
observed. 

It was soon after made useful in therapeutics ; carbonic acid was recog- 
nized as the most effective gas for removing pain, and was employed with 
success in several cases of ulcers. But from 1794 to 1834, the facts seem to 
have been forgotten. At the latter date, M. Mojon, Professor at Genoa, 
proposed the use of this gas anew. 

Dr. Follin was led to undertake his experiment from a knowledge of some 
recent trials by Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh. He has applied a douche of 
the gas with success for the relief of pain, in the case of three females having 
an ulcerated cancer of the neck of the womb. Quiet followed the applica- 
tion in a few seconds, and continued, in one case, for ten to twelve hours, 
when a new applicatlon was required; in a second, eight days; and in the 
third, an intermediate interval between the other two. There was, how- 

‘ever, no curative effect, which is not remarkable. Others have repeated 
the experiments. The gas must of course be made pure from any muriatic 
acid vapor, which may be effected by passing it through a concentrated 
solution of carbonate of soda. Dr. Follin prefers bicarbonate of soda for 
obtaining the carbonic acid, which he decumposes by means of tartaric acid. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF INKS. 


Alzarine Ink. — An ink bearing this name has recently been prepared by 
M. Leonhardi, of Hanover, by digesting twenty-four parts of Aleppo galls 
and three parts of Dutch Madder, with one hundred and twenty parts of 
warm water. The liquids filtered and mixed with 1:2 parts solution of in- 
digo, 5:2 sulphate of iron, and two parts crude acetate of iron solution. The 
advantages of this ink are, that, 1. It does not contain gum; 2. The tannate 
is prevented from separating by the sulphate of indigo; 3. Mouldiness is 
prevented by this addition and by the acetate of iron. 


On the Preparation of Writing Ink in Cakes. — After M. Leonhardi had 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. o21 


discovered the mode of preparation of the so-called alzarine-ink, which is 
particularly useful, he was anxious to prepare it in a form which would 
allow it to be sent to a great distance and at any time of the year, render its 
transport convenient, and diminish its cost considerably, but, at the same 
time, fulfil all the requirements of an excellent article. This is attained by 
the dry alizarine ink in cakes. The “ink-powders”’ hitherto found in com- 
merce are not to be compared with it, for they not only possess a different 
composition, but never dissolye completely to form a clear solution in water, 
and their employment is attended with so many inconveniences and disad- 
vantages, that they have been given up. Common black ink may indeed be 
eyaporated to dryness, but it leaves a residue which does not again dissolve 
completely in water, and never furnishes a useful ink by this solution. The 
recipe for the preparation of the cake ink is as follows: 

Forty-two parts of Aleppo galls and three parts of Dutch madder are ex- 
tracted with a sufficient quantity of hot water; the fluid is then filtered, five 
and a half parts of sulphate of iron ore dissolved in it, and two parts of a 
solution of iron in wood-vinegar, with one and one-fifth part of solution of 
indigo, are added to it. The mixture is evaporated to dryness at a mode- 
rate heat, and formed into cakes of a proper size (for instance five inches 
long, three and a half inches broad, and three-eighths of an inch thick). 

One part of this cake-ink dissolved in six parts of hot water, furnishes 
an excellent writing and copying ink, whilst even with one part of cake ink 
and ten to fifteen parts of water, beautiful writing inks are obtained. — Mdit- 
theil. des Gewerbe-vereins fiir das Kénigr. Hannover. 

A copying ink, for printing with the ordinary copying press, giving off an 
impression analogous to that of writing ink, has eee been intr oduced i in 
England. The ink is made of ground nutgalls, fourteen pounds; of sul- 
phate of iron, six pounds; of gum senegal, twelve pounds; of soap, three 
pounds; of molasses, four pounds; of Prussian blue, three pounds, and of 
filtered rain fifteen gallons. The nutgalls are boiled three hours in the 
water, and the clear liquid drawn off. The gum and sulphate of iron are 
then separately dissolved in the water, and the whole is mixed with the 
nutgall decoction, and exposed for about three weeks to the atmosphere, 
when the liquid is drawn off from the deposited matters and sediment. The 
molasses and soap are now added to the fluid, and the whole evaporated in 
a water bath, to nearly the consistency of ordinary printing ink, and the 
lampblack and Prussian blue are then mixed with it. The above ingredi- 
ents form a black ink; but any other color may be obtained by using cor- 
responding coloring materials. 

Dr. Bly recommends the following method of preparing ink: A decoc- 
tionis made with a pound and a quarter of nutgalls, and as much hot water 
as will give five pounds of liquid after straining. Then four ounces of in- 
digo powder is mixed with half a pound of sulphuric acid, the mixture left 
for twenty-four hours, then dissolved im five pounds of water and cight 
ounces of powdered chalk, and eight ounces of iron filings added. <A part 
of the acid is neutralized by the chalk, and a part by the iron filings, forming 
sulphate of iron. The solution thus obtained, mixed with the decoction of 


822 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


nutgalls, gives ten pounds of ink, which does not deposit sediment or turn 
mouldy, and flows readily from the pen. 


p CHEMICAL WRITING. 


The following is a copy of the specifications of a patent recently granted 
to M. Solhausen, for a process for producing chemical marks or writing on 
paper, without using a liquid like common inks, by employing chemically- 
prepared paper, and a chemically-prepared pencil, style or other-like instru- 
ment, to trace, write, or mark on paper, whereby the salts or substances in 
the pencil and paper, when they come in contact, will chemically unite 
under hygroscopic conditions at the natural temperature of the atmosphere, 
and will form visible chemical colored marks or writing on the paper. Hy- 
groscopic conditions are necessary to the process to effect chemical writing ; 
moisture is the agent which enables the salts or substances used to effect 
chemical union, but no liquid is employed. 

To prepare the paper, the common sizing that is used for writing paper 
is saturated with a salt or salts, or substances of considerable solubility, and 
which, when dried with the paper, will maintain its dryness and freedom 
from moisture under ordinary atmospheric changes. Colorless salts or sub- 
stances are preferred for this purpose, or they may be of such a light tint as 
not to be different from the color of writing paper. This salt or salts, or 
substance, is to form the ground for the colored marks or writing to be pro- 
duced on the paper. Various salts may be used for this purpose, according 
to the color of the marks or writing to be produced. For instance, to pro- 
duce blue marks or writing, the paper is prepared with ferrocyanide of am- 
monium, which is very soluble in water, or with salicylic. To make black 
marks or writing, indigolic salts, euxanthic salts, and morphine salts are 
used. To make red marks, meconic salts, kemenic salts, pyromeconic salts, 
and angelic salts are used. To produce green writing or marks, the paper is 
prepared with caffeic or themic salts. ‘These salts, either singly or a mix- 
ture of those specified for each color, are mixed with the sizing of the paper, 
which is applied in the usual manner, and the paper is afterwards dried and 
pressed in the common way. No certain quantity of these salts requires to 
be described, but about one ounce of any of them is sufficient to impregnate 
the sizing for about half a ream of common foolscap paper; a lesser quantity 
being uscd to produce fecbler colors, and more to produce darker shades. 
Other well-known salts than those specified may also be used, but those 
named will effect the results herein described — the principal feature of this 
invention being to produce chemical €riting without an ink. The patentee 
now takes a deliquescent salt, and, for cheapness, he prefers a ferric oxide — 
the nitrate, chloride, or sulphate of iron, obtained in any of the usual 
methods. This salt is triturated and mixed intimately with plastic clay, in 
about the quantities of an ounce of salt to a like quantity, by weight, of clay 
or similar substance. The ferric clay is then moulded into any desired 
form to constitute a pencil or tracing instrument, and is afterwards baked in 
an oven, to drive off the moisture by heat. ‘The heat is continued, at about 


oa 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 325 


212 degrees Fahr., to drive off all the moisture and to harden the clay. 
When this is accomplished, the ferric pencil or tracer is removed from the 
oven or other place, and plunged into molten bees-wax, spermaceti, or any 
substance of similar character, which will form an air-tight coating, and not 
decompose the ferric salt. The chemical pencil or tracer, thus produced, 
may be placeé between strips of wood, like a common lead pencil, or it may 
be placed in a metal pencil-case, and the point of it scraped to expose it to 
the air. The chemically-prepared paper, previously described, is now traced, 
pressed, or written upon with the pencil or instrument described. The 
ferric salt in the said pencil, during the act of writing, when exposed to the 
atmosphere, absorbs moisture ; and when it (the ferric salt) comes in contact 
with the salt or substance in the prepared paper, the salts or substances in 
the pencil and paper unite chemically (forming double decomposition), pro- 
ducing a new ferric compound in the prepared paper, and thereby producing 
chemical-colored characters, marks, or writing. Any of the ferric salts 
named for the pencil will produce the different colors mentioned on paper 
prepared with the substances heretofore specified for producing these colors. 
The pencil or tracer may also be made of a very porous substance, which 
may be steeped in a solution of ferric salt, then dried to expel the moisture, 
leaving the salts in fine crystals in its pores; it is then plunged into bees- 
wax, as described, for the above-described pencil, and for the same purpose. 
Type may be formed in the same manner as the ferric clay pencil described, 
and chemical printing may be executed without the use of common topical 
ink, which in some cases may be advantageous. A very porous fountain 
pencil may also be made, one whose pores will permit fine ferric salt to per- 
colate as it were through them, and be transmitted to the paper in the act of 
tracing or writing, and impressed on the paper by a hard point on the pencil, 
to bring the salt or salts in the pencil and prepared paper into contact, when 
the two will unite under hygroscopic conditions of the ferric salt, and pro- 
duce the chemical marks and writing heretofore described. 

Another method of obtaining the hygroscopic condition necessary to form 
a chemical union between the salt or substance in chemically-prepared paper 
and a pencil, without employing a dcliquescent salt to produce chemical 
writing on paper, is to use glycerine as a component part of the chemical 
. pencil or marker. Without the employment of a solution it will afford the 
same requisite amount of moisture as a deliquescent salt. Paper prepared 
with starch, as a sizing, will produce blue marks or writing, if it be traced 
upon with a porous pencil or fountain pencil containing iodine and glyce- 
rine — the latter not being present as a liquid, but simply as a hygroscopic 
agent. 

Another method of producing the same chemical marks or writing on 
paper as those described is, to prepare the paper in the same manner as that 
first described, and employ a dry salt in the pencil, and supply the hygros- 
copie conditions necessary to form the chemical union of the chemically-pre- 
pared paper and pencil during the act of writing or tracing, by placing a 
moist sheet of paper under the paper to be written upon; or they may be 
supplied, after tracing or writing, by pressing a sheet of moistened paper on 


324 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 
ae, 

the written or traced surface; by either of which acts the salts will receive 
the necessary supply of moisture to enable them to form double decompo- 
sition, and produce chemical marks or writing on the paper. The salt or 
salts preferred for making dry salt chemical pencil, for producing chemical 
writing or marking, of the character described, are the tartrate of iron, the 
hy persulphate of iron, or any of the permanent iron salts. 

Heretofore it has been a desideratum to obtain a superior substitute for 
the common lead or plumbago pencil and the crayon, and also for the 
method of writing with a fluid-like ink. The lead pencil and crayon only 
make mechanical marks, which are easily erased ; and writing with ink is 
troublesome, because the pen has to be often replenished. 

This improved method or process will produce chemical marks or writ- 
ing equal to those made by inks; and the method of writing or producing 
them is as easy as the act of writing with a common pencil. It will bea 
superior method of writing on books and bills, and making permanent re- 
cords on paper. It will afford security against alteration of the writing on 
records, as it will require the specific salts in the pencil and paper to pro- 
duce a writing similar in color and shade to that which is attempted to be 
supplanted, changed, or altered, and to that on the part of the document 
written upon. This process obyiates the evils and objections incident to the 
use of a common pencil or pen and ink. 

The patentee claims “ producing chemical marks, records, or writing, on 
chemically prepared paper, as described, by tracing, pressing, or writing 
with a chemically prepared pencil, style, tracer, type, or other suitable in- 
strument, on such paper, under the hygroscopic conditions herein described, 
or in any manner substantially the same.” 


PARCHMENT PAPER. 


At a recent meeting of the Royal Institution, Mr. J. Barlow, F. R. S., 
presented the following communication, on the new product, known as 
“Parchment Paper,” recently invented by Mr. W. E. Gaine. 

The compounds of woody-fibre are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; the last- 
named elements being combind in the same proportion as they exist in water. 
In this respect woody-fibre is identical with starch, dextrine, gum, and 
sugar. Unlike these substances, it is insoluble whether in water, ether, 
alcohol, or oil, and much more averse than they are to chemical change. 
Mr. Barlow called attention to the enormous inconvenience which wou!d 
arise if water could dissolve cloth, or if vegetable tissues were easily de- 
composed. It is, however, many years since Braconnot discovered that 
sawdust, linen, and cotton fabrics, &c., could be made to part with a 
portion of their constituent hydrogen in exchange for an oxide of nitro- 
gen obtained from the decomposition of the nitric acid with which they 
were treated. Pelouze afterwards applied this principle in operation on 
paper; and to the same principle must be ascribed the gun-cotton and 
collodion of Schonbein. Taking what may be called the gun-paper (Pel- 
ouze’s paper) as a type of all these substances, Mr. Barlow showed by 
experiment that it is inflammable and highly electrical, and that in con- 


> 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. ono 


sequence of the substitution of a certain number of equivalents (varying 
from five to three) of hyponitric aicd (NOx) for an equal proportion of 
hydrogen, it becomes fifty per cent. heavier than the paper out of which 
it was converted. 

The surface-action of vegetable fibre in receiving dyes was then men- 
tioned, in order to introduce some researches recently made by M. Kuhl- 
mann, Director of the Mint at Lille. Led to the investigation by the 
general notion that azotized substances, as wool, silk, &c., are more sus- 
ceptible of dyes then are vegetable textures, M. Kuhlmann instituted a 
series of experiments on gun-cotton, both woven and in the wool, by 
which he discovered that cotton or flax, thus azotized, will not take dye; 
but that if either by spontaneous, or else by artificially-produced decom- 
position, the fibre loses part of its nitrous principles, it then actually com- 
bines with colors much more energetically than it did while in its natural 
state. Specimens of the cloth which M. Kuhlmann had. experimented 
upon, and which that gentleman had sent for illustration of this subject, 
were exhibited. Having reminded the audience that, in all these cases, 
a change in chemical constitution accompanied the change in physical 
properties, Mr. Barlow contrasted with the pyroxylized textures of Kuhl- 
mann and the gun-paper of Pelouze, the woven fabrics subjected to Mer- 
cer’s process, and the Parchment-paper, the invention of Mr. Gaine. By 
acting on cloth with chloride of zinc, tin, or calcium, with sulphuric and 
arsenic acid, and, especially, by the caustic alkalis in the cold (the tem- 
perature sometimes being lowered to—10° Fahr.), Mr. Mercer bas ob- 
tained many important effects on the fineness and the general appearance 
of cloth, and its susceptibility of dye. It being known that sulphuric acid, 
under certain conditions, modified vegetable fibre, Mr. Gaine instituted 
a course of experiments to ascertain the exact strength of acid which would 
produce that effect on paper which he sought, as well as the time dur- 
ing which the paper should be subjected to its action. He succeeded in 
discovering, that when paper is exposed to a mixture of two parts of 
concentrated sulphuric acid (s. g. 1°854, or thereabouts) with one part of 
water, for no longer time than is taken up in drawing in through the acid, 
it is immediately converted into a strong, tough, skin-like material. All 
traces of the sulphuric acid must be instantly removed by careful wash- 
ing in water. If the strength of the acid much exceeds or falls short 
of these limits, the paper is either charred, or else converted into dex- 
trine. The same conversion into dextrine also ensues, if the paper be 
allowed to remain for many minutes in the sulphuric acid after the change 
in its texture has been effected. In a little more then than a second of 
time, a piece of porous and fecble unsized paper is thus converted into 
the Purchment-paper, a substance so strong, that a ring seven-eighths of 
an inch in width, and weighing no more than twenty-three grains, sus- 
tained ninety-two pounds; a strip of parchment of the same dimensions 
supporting about fifty-six pounds. Though, like animal parchment, it 
absorbs water, water does not percolate through it. Though paper con- 
tracts in dimensions by this process of conversion into Parchment-paper, 


28 


326 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 

it receives no appreciable increase of weight, thus demonstrating that no 
sulphuric acid is either mechanically retained by it or chemically combined 
with it. It has also been ascertained by analysis that no trace of sulphur 
exists in the Parchment-paper. 'The fact of this paper retaining its chemi- 
cal identity, constitutes an important distinction between it and the gun- 
papers of Pclouze and others. Unlike those substances, it is neither an elec- 
tric, nor more combustible than unconverted paper of equal size and weight, 
nor soluble in ether or potash. Unlike common paper, it is not disinte- 
erated by water; unlike common parchment, it is not decomposed by heat 
and moisture. In this remarkable operation, the action of the sulphuric 
acid may be classed among the phenomena ascribed to catalysis (or con- 
tact action). It is however, conceivable that this acid does, at first, combine 
with the woody fibre, with or without the elimination of oxygen and hy- 
drogen, as water; and that this compound is subsequently decomposed 
by the action of water, in mass, during the washing process, the sulphuric 
acid being again replaced by an equivalent of water; for, as has been be- 
fore stated, the weight of the paper remains the same before and after its 
conversion. 

Those who are interested in chemical inquiry will recall many instances 
of physical changes occurring in compound bodies, while these bodies re- 
tain the same elements in the same relative weights. The red iodide of 
mercury is readily converted, by heat, into its yellow modifications ; yet, 
by the mere act of being rubbed, it is made to resume its former color. 
Nothing is added to or taken from this substance in the course of these 
changes. The inert and permanent crystals of cyanuric acid are resolved 
by heat into cyanic acid —a volatile liquid characterized by its pungent 
and penetrating odor, and so unstable that, soon after its preparation, it 
changes into a substance (cyamelide) which is solid, amorphous, and des- 
titute of all acid properties. These substances, as well as fulminic acid, 
(which, however, is known in combination only,) contain carbon, nitrogen, 
oxygen, and hydrogen, in the same relative proportion. But the closest 
analogy to the production of Parchment-paper, scientifically considered, is 
perhaps afforded by what is called ‘the continuous process” in etherifi- 
cation. It will be remembered that, in this process, sulphuric acid, at a 
temperature of 284° Fahr., converts an unlimited quantity of alcohol into 
ether and water. In the first stage of this process, as explained by Wil- 
liamson, it would appear that the sulphuric acid combines with the ele- 
ments of ether to form sulphovinie acid; and that, in the further progress 
of the operation, this compound, by coming into contact with a fresh 
equivalent of alcohol, is, in its turn, decomposed, and resolved into ether 
and sulphuric acid. The ether distils over together with the water result- 
ing from the decomposition of the alcohol: the sulphuric acid remains in 
the retort ready to act on the next portion. Here, as in the case of the 
Parchment-paper, the sulphurie acid does not form a permanent constituent 
of the resulting substance, though it takes so important a share in its pro- 
duction. The strength of this new substance, before alluded to, and its 
indestructibility by water, indicate matiy uses to which it may be applied. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 327 


It will probably replace to some extent vellum in book-binding ; it will 
furnish material for legal documents, such as policies of insurance, scrip 
certificates, &c.; it will take the place of ordinary paper in school-books, 
and other books exposed to constant wear. Paper, after having been 
printed either from the surface or in intaglio, is still capable of conver- 
sion by Mr. Gaine’s method, no part of the printed matter being oblit- 
erated by the process. Parchment-paper also promises to be of value for 
photographic purposes, and also for artistic uses in consequence of the 
manner in which it bears both oil and water-color. 


ACTION OF TANNIN UPON SKIN. 


The first of a series of investigations has been recently laid before the 
Academy of Sciences, Paris, by M. Payen, undertaken with a view of ar- 
riving, if it be possible, at a knowledge of the phenomena which are going 
on during the operation of tanning, and to establish a theory of this opera- 
tion, still so obscure to the chemist. In this first part, he has endeavored 
only to examine thoroughly and show the generality of a fact, which he had 
observed several years ago. This fact is, that there exist in the skin two 
portions which present different properties, when they have undergone the 
action of tannin. One of these is easily disaggregated, soluble in ammonia- 
water, the other preserves its fibrous texture, and resists the action of the 
re-agent, although frequently renewed. The saturation of the skin by the 
tannin takes place long before the time practically required for good tan- 
ning ; and requires for the two parts much less tannin than gelatine. The 
compound formed with the tannin, by the less cohesive parts of the skin, 
when it has been dissolved in ammonia, is changed in dissolving; it under- 
goes, besides, a considerable loss of nitrogen during its evaporation to dry- 
ness. The effects of long-continued tanning cause the gradual solution of 
the less cohesive portions united with the tannin, and consequently a rela- 
tive increase of the quantity of resisting fibrous material. The product, in 
this case, must therefore be both more pliable and more tenacious. The 
friable soluble portion which remains in the tanned leather is unstable ; in 
dissolving, it may withdraw considerable quantities of the azotized sub- 
stance ; and it is thus, perhaps, that the less cohesive part of the skin is 
removed during the long operations of tanning. These are, in substance,” 
the remarks which result from the observations and analyses reported in 
detail by M. Payen. ‘The author proposes to examine successively all the 
operations of tanning, and to study separately the effects produced by lime, 
soda, by ammonia, the formation of which is determined by the foregoing 
bases, by dilute sulphuric and lactic acids, &c. — L’ Institut. 26th November. 


ON THE PREPARATION OF PURE GRAPE-SUGAR. 


Commercial honey, as crystalline as possible, is spread upon porous tiles. 
The white crystalline residue is dissolved in alcohol, and purified by re-crys- 
tallization ; if necessary, also with animal charcoal. The honey yields about 
one-fourth of its weight of grape-sugar. — Journ. fur Prakt. Chem. 


\ 


328 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


THE PREPARATION OF COLLODION FOR SURGICAL PURPOSES. 


For this purpose Hofmann introduces one part of cotton wool into a mix- 
ture consisting of twenty parts of the strongest nitric acid, and thirty parts 
of sulphuric acid, for a quarter of an hour. The operation should be con- 
ducted in a glass vessel with a cover, and the cotton stirred frequently by 
means of a glass rod. The cotton is then well washed, to remove the last 
trace of acid, and pressed strongly in a linen cloth, and before being dried it 
should be pulled, to separate the knotty portions. ‘The cotton should now 
be dried in a sieve over a stove. Six parts of the cotton thus prepared are 
dissolved in a mixture of one hundred and twenty parts of ether and eight 
parts of rectified spirits of wine, to which three parts of castor oil are finally 
added. Hofmann states that this collodion docs not crack or contract like 
that prepared in the usual manner. — London Lancet. 


ETHER AND CHLOROFORM GELATINIZED. 


Professor Rusponi has succeeded in turning ether and chloroform into 
gelatine, by shaking them with white of egg in a closed receiver. The com- 
pound obtained with the ether is semi-transparent ; with the chloroform it is 
white and opaque. ‘This gelatine is soluble in water, and may be spread on 
linen in the form of a poultice. It will likewise mix with morphine, canthari- 
dine, conicine, &c., and may thus become of great therapeutical use. 


DESTRUCTION OF VERMIN BY ANESTHETIC AGENTS. 


The following is an abstract of a paper read before the Paris Academy, by 
M. Doyere, on the destruction of vermin by anzsthetic agents applied par- 
ticularly to the case of insects, or larve, in whieat. 

Experiments have been made at Algiers on the most extensive scale with 
these objects, especially to ascertain their effects on cereals. It was ascer- 
tained that two grammes of chloroform, or, a sulphurate of carbon per 
metrical quintal of wheat, was sufficient to destroy, in five days’ time, all the 
insects in wheat ; while with five grammes of sulphuret of carbon per metri- 
cal quintal, the destruction takes place in twenty-four hours. The mass of 
grain operated on, so far from being a difficulty, rather simplifies the opera- 
tion. Experiments were made on 11,600 hectolitres of barley at once ; one 
hundred pounds of the sulphuret of carbon was used, which required twenty 
minutes to introduce into the mass. These operations may be made success- 
fully even when the heap of grain is simply covered with a water-proof cloth, 
which is closed with clay near the ground on every side. The grain operated 
on retains all its germinating properties. The fetid odor of the sulphuret of 
carbon is soon dissipated ; and after it has been exposed two or three days to 
the air, and moved occasionally with a shovel, no trace of it remains. The 
grain so treated, when ground and made into bread, cannot be distinguished 
from grain which has not been exposed to the influence of anzesthetic agents. 
Animals ate the barley, while it was still fetid, with such an appetite and avi- 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 329 


dity as to indicate that the odor and the savor it retained were far from being 
disagreeable to them. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PERFUMES. 


It has been found that by treating wheat, or its farina, with ether, some 
waxy or fatty matters are dissolved, which are more or less colored, and 
almost always have a strong odor ; this aromatic principle is very persistent, 
and may be xecoenized in the fatty matter after the lapse of several years, 
disappearing, however, whenever the fat becomes rancid. These facts have 
been made the foundation of a process devised by M. Millon, a French chem- 
ist, for the extraction of the aromatic principle of flowers and of some plants 
peculiar to Algeria. 

To avoid the alterations which flowers undergo on drying, or distillation, 
M. Millon separates the aromatic part by dissolving it in a very volatile 
liquid which is afterwards expelled by distillation. With such a solvent, the 
distillation is attended with no inconvenience, for it may be performed at a 
low temperature; M. Millon finds that the perfume undergoes alteration 
Whenever a temperature is applied above that of the surrounding atmos- 
phere. In some parts of Northern Africa, the thermometer reaches -++ 70 C. ; 
he then employs with success the volatile solvents, such as sulphuret of car- 
bon, ether, chloroform, word-spirit, the point of ebullition in which is below 
this temperature. He has even succeeded with alcohol, whose point of ebul- 
lition is above 70°. 

The solvents which succeed best are ether and sulphuret of carbon. The 
flowers are put into the apparatus, and the ether then poured on so as to cover 
it. In ten or fifteen minutes the liquid is run off anda new quantity of ether 
introduced to wash out what is left; this remains as long as the first. The 
ether dissolves all the perfume and deposits it again on distillation in the form 
of variously colored residue, sometimes solid, sometimes oily or semi-fluid, 
yet becoming solid after some time. This residue, when obtained in a thin 
layer, is fused by the solar heat or an equivalent temperature, and resofiened 
frequently until it exhales no longer the odor of the solvent. 

The solvent, ether or sulphuret of carbon, should have been previously 
purified with the greatest care. That derived from the distillation may be 
used indefinitely, provided it is for the same flower and apparatus. Properly 
managed there is but very little loss of the solvent and the distillation is 
rapidly performed, much more rapidly and with a larger amount of leaves 
and flowers than by the ordinary method of distillation. But the gathering 
of the flowers should be done at the proper time of day for each flower. 
Thus the carnation gives off its perfume after an exposure of two or three 
hours to the sun. Roses, on the contrary, should be collected in the morn- 
ing as soon as well open; the Jasmine before sunrise. 

In the distillation, as hitherto carried on, all the modifications of the flow- 
ers are mixed in one and the same essence, which corresponds to no one of 
them, the better portion partly correcting the rest. But with the Millon 
process, the slightest alteration is apparent in the perfume, and in order to 


25* 


3380 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


obtain the freshness and delicacy of the flowers, it is necessary to have them 
fresh and sweet. ‘The perfection of the flowers determines the perfection of 
the perfume. 

At first Millon operated by shutting out the contact of the air. But now 
he favors its presence, for he has found that the perfume, instead of dissipat- 
ing rapidly like the essences, has great fixedness. It is only through con- 
tact with other principles of the plant that it undergoes aiteration. Once 
isolated, it is beyond their influence, and experiences no further change. 
Millon thus for several years has kept perfumes at the bottom of open tubes 
or capsules open to the air without sensible alteration ; and according to 
him, this fixedness or resistance to atmospheric change is a fundamental 
characteristic of perfumes. 

It has not been possible yet to submit the perfumes to elementary analysis, 
the flowers furnishing so little of it; a kilogramme giving only a few milli- 
grams of the aromatic principle. 

The residue of the operation by ether or sulphuret of carbon contains 
wax and fatty and coloring matters, and it is very difficult to separate the 
aromatic principle from them. Alcohol answers best for this purpose. It 
does not dissolve the waxy part, while it removes completely the odor. 
operating with alcohol on a grain of the residue, the perfume is taken up 
with a little oil and the coloring matter, and the aromatic residue will have 
lost in the process only a few hundredths of its weight. 

The perfume is almost indefinitely diffusible in the air, showing its pre- 
sence by its odor, without any sensible loss of weight. Itis equally diffusible 
in distilled water, when some drops of an alcoholic solution are poured into 
it; but in ordinary water, the odor is dissipated, showing its easy alterability 
with reagents. 

The facility with which these perfumes dissolve in alcohol, fats and oils, 
shows the ways in which it may be industrially employed. ‘The essential 
point is, that the small quantity of product afforded by the flower represents 
exactly the amount of perfume, and a gramme of residue proceeding from a 
kilogramme of flowers, aromatizes to the same degree fat, or oil, and under a 
volume a thousand times less produces the same effects. The process, then, 
takes the volatilizable part of the flower, concentrates and preserves it, and 
puts it up for transfer, without loss, to the perfumery shops, where the final 
preparations are made. Moreover, the work of incorporating the perfume 
of the flowers with fats and oils, to-day so costly and so incomplete, will be 
replaced by a simple mixing or solution, which may be done at any conve- 
nient time, or place. It is, for perfumery, a new art of extreme simplicity. 


ON THE SUGAR OF THE SORGHUM SACCHARATUM, OR CHINESE 
SUGAR-CANE. 

At alate meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes read a paper upon the kind of sugar developed in the Sorghum sac- 
charatum, or Chinese Sugar-Cane, as follows : 

The introduction of this interesting plant has led to many somewhat ex- 
travagant suggestions, in relation to its future bearing on the agriculture and 


> 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. dol 


commerce of our country, particularly in relation to its produce ofsugar. I 
have therefore deemed it a subject worthy of chemical observation and ex- 
periments, to determine its claims as a sugar producer; and have also 
chosen it to illustrate a uniformity of vegetable secretion, according with 
well-known natural laws. In order to give scientific precision to the remarks 
which follow, itis necessary that a brief definition of the term sugar, should 
be given. So rapidiy has chemical science progressed of late, that this well- 
known term has now become a generic name for a class of bodies, individu- 
ally presenting us with the most marked diversities of sensible characters 
and composition. We have sugars which are sweet, others which are 
slightly sweet, and some destitute of sweetness; some are fermentable, 
others do not undergo this change ; some are fluid, more are solid. 

In connection with the present subject, adopting cane sugar as the most 
important kind commercially, and as an article of food from certain inherent 
qualities, if we examine into its sources, we find them abundant, but not 
numerous. So far as observation has extended, its production by a plant is 
definite ; a change of locality, even when accompanied by a marked change 
in the habit of the plant, does not alter essentially the nature of the sugar it 
produces. Thus the cane of Louisiana rarely matures and is an annual, 
while in the soil and climate of Cuba, it enjoys a life of thirty, or even sixty 
years. The juice of our southern plant always contains more soluble alka- 
line and earthy salts than is found in the cane of Cuba, but its sugar is 
secreted as cane sugar. The juice of the sugar beet, of water-melons, and 
a large number of tropical fruits, the sap of the maple and date palm, afford 
cane sugar. In these juices and saps, when concentrated by desiccation in 
the cells of the plants, it always appears in regular, brilliant crystals, of a 
prismatic form, elear and colorless ; distinctly indicating a vital force in the 
plant, separating it from other proximate principles and leaving it in its as- 
signed place pure. 

The class of sugars next in importance, includes under the general term 
Glucose, a number of sugars having varied characters, which should be 
separately grouped. Among them are the sugars of fruits, seeds, and 
grasses ; those produced in the animal system, and the artificial sugars made 
from starch, grains, and sawdust. The varicties of glucose are both solid 
semi-fluid. When solid they present aggregates of sub-crystalline form, in 
which the organie tendency to rounded surfaces, is generally seen. The 
semifluid forms often manifest a disposition to become solid on exposure to 
air, and they then experience a molecular change, which produces crystals 
having new relations to polarized light and different physical and chemical 
characters. 

It is unnecessary to enter more minutely at this time, into a description 
of each variety of glucose, for the individuals of the class are easily distin- 
guished from each other, and most clearly and remarkably from cane sugar. 
The plants producing the natural glucose sugars, mature their cells as_per- 
fectly as those producing cane sugar, and the secretion can be found as dis- 
tinctly isolated from other principles as cane sugar is, even when the glucose 
is semifluid. Hence we are able to determine by microscopical observations, 


302 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


aided by chemical tests, the presence and kind of sugar in the tissues, or sap 
of a plant, often without incurring the risk of change of properties through 
the chemical means adopted for withdrawing the sugar. 

We have the authority of our associate, Mr. Sprague, for the conclusion, 
that the Sorghum vulgare, or saccharatum, belongs to the tribe including 
grasses, and we should therefore expect to find its saccharine matter the 
variety of glucose called sugar of grasses or fruit sugar. The unsuccessful 
attempts made to crystallize sugar from the juice of the Sorghum, produced 
in different climates of our country last year, indicated that it contained no 
cane sugar, or that the presence of some detrimental matter in the ex- 
pressed juice, destroyed the crystallizable character of cane sugar, as can be 
artificially done. My observations commenced after I had obtained several 
specimens of the Sorghum, and have been continued on the semifluid 
sugar, likewise from different parts of the United States, with uniform 
results. 

When a recent shaving of the partially-dried pith of the matured stalks of 
the Sorghum is examined by the microscope, we observe the sugar cells 
filled with semifluid sugar. After exposure to air it is often possible to dis- 
tinguish some crystalline forms in the fluid sugar. These grains, after being 
washed, cease to present a clear crystalline character, and have the hard- 
ness and general appearance, of dry fruit sugar. By withdrawing the sugar 
without the aid of water, it is possible to obtain it colorless and meutral, as a 
semifluid glucose or fruit sugar, and no traces of crystals or crystalline forms 
can be seen. The glucose thus obtained, freely exposed to air, soon under- 
goes the molecular change which is exhibited by sugar of grapes, and we 
thus observe another character associating the whole product, with the sugar 
of grasses and fruits. Leaving the physical observations, and substituting 
the more exact processes of the laboratory, I found that the semifluid sugar 
of the Sorghum did not blacken in sulphuric acid, but was sensitive to the 
action of alkalies, and reduced the alkaline solution of tartrate of copper, 
thus conforming to the well-known characters of glucose. The most care- 
ful trials I could make, failed in detecting cane sugar in any samples of the 
Sorghum stalks, or in the samples of sugar, including one made by Colonel 
Peters in Georgia, prepared under the most careful management. I must 
therefore conclude, that the Sorghum cultivated in this country does not secrete 
cane sugar or true sugar ; its saccharine matter being purely glucose in a semi- 
fluid form. 

As a matter of science this result is interesting, in showing the integrity 
of character pertaining to the genus in which this plant is botanicaily 
placed; the sweet grassed yielding fruit sugar, while the maize produces 
cane sugar only. 

In its economical bearings we might wish that the sorghum secreted cane 
sugar, for the values of cane sugar and glucose are very different. From 
the best authorities we learn that the power of imparting sweetness in cane 
sugar, is between two and one half and three times as great as that of dry 
glucose, and the semifluid sugar of the Sorghum containing water, nearly 
four pounds of this will be required, to equal one pound of sugar in ordinary 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 333 


use. As araw material for the production of spirit, for which it seems well 
adapted, the glucose of the Sorghum may prove valuable, and as an addition 
to a forage crop, the plant may be found to possess a high agricultural im- 
portance. 

Dr. John Bacon made a statement confirmatory of the results arrived at 
by Dr. Hayes. He was unable to obtain any crystals of cane sugar. 

A private note of Dr. Hayes, received by the editor since the communica- 
tion of the above paper, states that the glucose sugar of the sorghum, after ex- 
traction and standing several months, takes a crystalline form. The crys- 
tals formed resemble those of cane sugar, but the product itself remains a 
higher grade of dry fruit sugar. 

Dr. Hayes also states, that the sorghum, when grown in Algeria, undoubt- 
edly secretes cane sugar —the climatic influences being altogether different 
from those to which the plant is subjected in the United States. 


ON A NEW APPLICATION OF ALUMINA. 


All chemists know the property which hydrated alumina possesses of 
uniting with coloring matters and forming true combinations commonly 
known under the name of lakes. These compounds, although not yet 
studied, ought to have, constant composition, for we know certain salts of 
these coloring matters with other bases; for instance, carmine forms with 
the oxide of copper a definite substance, and alizarine forms with potash a 
definite substance; and M. Mené, chemist to the metallurgical establish- 
ment of Cruezot, seeing this property and the power of hydrated alumina to 
decolorize liquids, thought whether its use might not be extended to some 
more branches of industry. 

He prepared the hydrated alumina by decomposing a solution of alum 
with carbonate of soda, washing the precipitate in a filter. This alumina 
was mixed with boiling solutions of coloring matters, the alumina always 
being in excess, and a colored lake was obtained, precipitated at the bottom 
of a colorless liquid. ‘The experiments were first made upon solutions of 
litmus and upon carmine, and extended to molasses and colored syrups. 
The experiments were so successful that the author hopes, owing to the, 
simplicity of the operation, that it will be possible to substitute it, or the 
salts of alumina, in place of animal charcoal in decolorizing sugars. 

To decolorize the syrup of sugar, at present, the syrup is made to flow 
very slowly through tubes containing large quantities of animal charcoal, 
and the operation is more or less quick in proportion as the solution is more 
or less concentrated ; whilst by means of alumina there is only one boiling 
requred, and on leaving the apparatus the sugar can crystallize out of it. 
A simple cloth filter stops the lakes formed by the impurities of the syrup. 
The revivification of the alumina salt would be trifling compared with 
that of animal charcoal. The results of the experiments were as follows: 


10 grains litmus were discolored by 250 grains animal charcoal 
10 fe “cc “sé 6c “ 15 “ce alumina 


334 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


1 quart ofa solution ofmolasses by 125 grains animal charceal 


ent GB cc « ‘c 6h a. 7s alumina 
1 “ honey water, brown “ 200 “ animal charcoal 
1 eG a3 1G a Spyies alumina 


There would be a great advantage in this process, owing to the fact that 
it does not introduce into the liquids operated upon any strange matter 
capable of altering the product which it is desired to obtain; in truth, the 
alumina itself is insoluble and insipid; morcover, the lake which it forms 
with the coloring matters is itself insoluble and insipid. 


OXLAND’S METHOD OF REFINING SUGAR. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Dr. Daubeny gave an 
account of anew method of refining sugar, recently introduced into England 
by Mr. Oxland, and known by his name. 

It consists in the adoption of the superphosphate of alumina in conjunction 
with animal charcoal, as a substitute for the albumen usually employed for 
that purpose. In both cases the object is to separate and carry down the 
yarious impurities which color and adulterate the pure saccharine principle 
present in the syrup expressed from the cane or other vegetable which sup- 
plies it. As, however, bullocks’ blood is the material usually procured for 
the purposes of supplying the albumen, a portion of uncoagulated animal 
matter, together with certain salts, is left in the juice in the ordinary process 
of refining, which impairs its purity and promotes its fermentation —tuus 
oceasioning a certain loss of saccharine matter to result. Nothing of the kind 
happens when the superphosphate is substituted, and so much more perfect 
@ purification of the feculent matters, under such circumstances takes place, 
that several varieties of native sugar, which, from being very highly charged 
with feculent matters, are rejected in the ordinary process of refining, are 
readily purified by this method. The employment of superphosphate of 
alumina also gets rid of so much larger a proportion of the impurities present 
in the’ sugar, that much less animal charcoal is subsequently required for 
effecting its complete defzecation than when bullocks’ blood has been re- 
sorted to. The quantity of superphosphate necessary for effecting the ob- 
ject is, for ordinary sugars, not less than twelve ounces to the ton; whereas, 
for the same quantity, as much as from one to four gallons of bullocks’ 
blood is found to be required. Dr. Daubeny suggested that this re-agent 
might be advantagcously resorted to, not only in the purification of sugar, 
but also in other processes of the laboratory, when the removal of foreign 
matters, intimately mixed with the solution of a definite component, becomes 
a necessary preliminary in its further examination. 


COLORING MATTER FROM THE SORGHO. 
Dr. Sicard, of Marseilles, France, discovered in the husk surrounding 


the seed of the sorgho plant two coloring matters combined together in it. 
One is red and soluble in water, but very soluble in alcohol and ether, 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. ooo 


as well as in the alkalies, the other is orange yellow, and soluble in hot 
and cold water. He has found these coloring matters in the husks of every 
species of the sorgho plant. 

M. Itier, another French chemist, in a paper recently presented to the 
French Academy states, that he is satisfied that the coloring matters dis- 
covered by M. Sicard, are to be found in the stalks, as well as the husks, 
and can be obtained after all the sugary liquid has been expressed from 
Xem. The red coloring matter which M. Itier gets from these sources he 

mes purpuroleine, and the yellow coloring matter he names xantholeine. 


ON THE COMPOSITION OF WHEAT-FLOUR AND BREAD. 


The following is an abstract of a paper recently read before the London 
Chemical Society, on the composition of wheat-flour and bread, by Messrs. 
Lawes and Gilbert: 

The authors described the results of an extended course of experiments, 
in which the wheat was traced throughout from the field to the bakery. 
The crops under examination were grown each successive year from 1845 
to 1854 inclusive. In 1846, which year yielded altogether the most fully 
matured crops, the proportion of nitrogen was lowest, and in 1853, when 
the crops were altogether poorest, the proportion of nitrogen was highest. 
The characters of a highly matured crop are, low proportion of water, 
low proportion of ash, and lew proportion of nitrogen. In reference to 
the effect of manuring, it appeared that in crops manured with both ni- 
trogenized and mineral matters, there was the best produce and the great- 
est reduction in the proportion of nitrogen. The character of the ash of 
wheat, though subject to considerable variations in poor crops, was found 
in well-matured produce to have great fixity of composition. ‘The character 
of the ash, moreover, was very independent of the nature of the manure, 
but it was observed that the proportion of lime increased with the high ma- 
turation of the crop. In reference to the produces of the mill, the bran was 
found to yield ten times as much ash, and one and a half times as much 
nitrogen as did the household flour. Nothwithstanding the higher per cen- 
tage of nitrogen, and the large actual amounts of the mineral constituents 
of the grain contained in the branny portions, the writers of the paper were 
of opinion that such were the effects of the branny particles in increasing 
the peristaltic movements of the bowels, and thus clearing the alimentary 
canal more rapid!y of its contents, that it was questionable whether in the 
generality of cases, more nutriment would not be lost to the system by the 
admission into the food of the imperfectly divided branny particles, than 
would be gained by the introduction into the body in connection with these 
irritating or cathartic particles, of a larger amount of supposed nutritious 
matters. . 

he authors estimated the amount of water in bread at from thirty-six to 
thirty-eight per cent., and considered. that 100 pounds of flour yielded on 
the average 138 pounds of bread. Their experiments showed that the loss 
of dry matter in fermentation is extremely smail, certainly less than one 


336 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


per cent. It is well known that millers and bakers consider the excellence 
of flour to be in proportion to the amount of starch. Contrary to the opinion 
of Liebig, and of most chemical physiologists, the authors maintained that 
the bakers’ standard is the correct one; or at any rate that the least nitro- _ 
genized bread contains an ample sufficiency of nitrogen, and that the great 
demand for food is for its respiratory or carboniferous constituents. From 
a large number of analyses of flour, in which the gluten was separated 
mechanically, it appeared that, both in Europe and Amcrica, in proceed- 
ing from the north to the south, the proportion of gluten gradually increased, 
and, consequently, according to the authors’ criterion of high maturation, 
the most matured crops were grown in the coldest latitudes. 


LACTIC ACID IN VEGETABLES. 


Professor Wittstein, a German Naturalist, has announced the discovery 
of Lactic Acid, heretofore considered of exclusive animal origin, in vegeta- 
bles, especially in the peduncles of solanum dulcam ara, and in the liquid 
which dropped from freshly cut vine branches. It would seem the further 
researches are carried, the fewer distinctions remain between vegetable and 
animal substances. — Journal of Medicine. 


ORIGIN OF UREA IN THE ANIMAL ECONOMY. 


Dumas has announced with much enthusiasm the confirmation of his 
views already old respecting the origin of urea in the animal economy, 
namely, that the urea proceeds from the albuminoid substances destroyed 
in the blood by an oxydating process. This is now established by M. Be- 
champ, Professor at the School of Pharmacy of Strasbourg, who has suc- 
ceeded in changing albumine fibrine and gluten into urea by a slow com- 
bination proceeded by means of a solution of permanganate of potash at 
the temperature of about cighty degrees C. The following is the pro- 
cess : 

Ten grams of aluminum are dissulyed in 300 grams of water; and to 
his by degrees seventy-five grams of permanganate of potash are added. 
The reduction, which is at first very active, soon ceases. It is then heated 
to forty degrees C. in a water bath, and from time to time saturated with 
sulphuric acid, yet so as to leave it still a little alkaline. When the discol- 
oration is completed, it is filtered, and exactly saturated with dilute sul- 
phuric acid. The solution, now perfectly limpid, is evaporated in a water 
bath ; and when reduced to a small volume, an excess of concentrated 
alcohol is added; it deposits some sulphate of potash and sulphate of am- 
monia. The alcoholic solution is evaporated in its turn to the consist- 
ence of honey and treated with hot absolute alcohol, which dissolves the 
urea. 

Whilst M. Bechamp was bringing out this transformation, a physiologist, 
M. Picard, made, also at Strasbourg, some observations bearing on the sub- 
ject, having reference to the presence of urea in the blood and its diffusion 
through the system. 


It is known that according to MM. Dumas and Prévost, urea shows 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 337 


itself in the blood of animals after the removal of the kidneys, and that 
they conclude from the fact that the kidneys remove the urea, while not 
producing it. 
_ M. Picard has completed the demonstration. He has compared, as re- 
gards the presence of urea, the arterial and venous blood by precipitating 
the urea with nitrate of mercury. The renal artery of a dog afforded 0-0365 
per cent of urea, and the renal vein only 0°0186 per cent. In studying the 
question with reference to man, he has observed that the arterial blood 
which passes into the kidneys leaves there about twenty-eight grams of urea; 
while the quantity of urea in the urine of the subjects submitted to experi- 
ment, varied between twenty-seven and twenty-eight grams for the twenty- 
four hours. This proves that the kidneys remove but do not make urea, as 
announced thirty-five years since by Prévost and Dumas. 


ON UREA AS A DIRECT SOURCE OF NITROGEN IN VEGETATION. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Professor Cameron 
showed that nitrogen was as available as food for plants, when a constituent 
for urea, as in its ammoniacal combination ; or, in other words, that urea, 
without being converted into ammonia, may be taken up into the organisms 
of plants, and there supply the necessary quantity of nitrogen. He des- 
cribed the experiments which led him to this conclusion, which were very 
elaborate, and were made on barley plants, in circumscribed spaces, and 
where the air was, in consequence of being treated with dilute sulphuric 
acid, rendered free of ammonia, the barley having been sown in a soil 
which was constituted of felspar, and an artificial manure, containing sub- 
stances derived from the ashes of the barley plant. ‘To some of the earthen 
vessels in which the barley was planted urea was supplied, and to others 
sulphate or ammonia, and some were left without any nitrogeneous matter 
whatever. In the two former instances the results were equal — they both 
arrived at maturity simultaneously —and the ears were equally developed. 
The instances in which no nitrogenous substance was used merely germin- 
ated, small stems appeared, but no ears were produced. ‘The deductions 
from the foregoing were thus enumerated by Dr. Cameron, —1. That 
the perfect development of barley can take place, under certain conditions, 
in soil and air free of ammonia and its compounds. 2. That urea in 
solution is capable of being taken into the organism of plants. 3. That 
urea need not be converted into ammonia before its nitrogen becomes avail- 
able to promote the process to serve the purposes of vegetation. 4. That 
the fertilizing effects of urea are little, if at all, inferior to those of am- 
moniacal salts. 5. That there exists no necessity for allowing drainings or 
other fertilizing substances containing urea to ferment, but on the contrary, 
greater benefits must be derived from their application in a fresh or unfer- 
mented state. 


FUNCTION OF SALT IN AGRICULTURE. 


Mr. A. B. Northcote has communicated to the London Philosophical 
Magazine, a paper of experiments undertaken to ascertain the rationale of 


29 


aoe ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


a » 

the action of salt in increasing the fertility of certain lands. We have not 
space for details, but quote Mr. Northcote’s conclusions — “ The results, 
then, at which we must arrive are, that agricultural salt is a most energetic 
absorbent of ammonia, both in virtue of its chloride of sodium and of its 
soluble lime-salt, and that the proportion of the latter especially most power- 
fully affects its action; but that at the same time its agency does not seem to 
be altogether a permanent one ; it will collect the ammonia, but it is ques- 
tionable whether it can retain it for any great length of time, because in the 
very decompositions which happen in order to render the ammonia more 
stable, salts are formed which have a direct tendency to liberate ammonia 
from its more fixed combinations. It may, however, retain it quite long 
enough for agricultural purposes ; if the young plants are there ready to re- 
ceive it, its state of gradual liberation may be for them the most advanta- 
geous possible; and to this conclusion all experiments on the large scale 
appear most obviously to tend. It is described as an excellent check to the 
too forcing power of guano ; and from M. Barral’s experiment we see that it 
either prevents the too rapid eremacausis of the latter, or stores up the am- 
monia as itis formed. As a manure for growing crops, all experience and 
all theoretical considerations therefore show it to be most valuable; but 
when employed to mix with manure heaps which have to stand for consider- 
able periods of time, theory would pronounce, as practice has in many cases 
done, that its power of retaining ammonia under those circumstances is at 
the best doubtful.” 


NOTES ON ALUM IN BREAD AND ITS DETECTION. 


At arecent meeting of the London Chemical Society, a paper was read 
by Mr. Hadow, upen the above subject. 

After detailing two processes which have: been put forward for the examin- 
ation of bread for alum, Mr. Hadow stated that, wishing to test these pro- 
cesses, he had a loaf prepared by a baker, into the dough of which had been 
put the large quantity of eighty grains to the quartern loaf. After baking, 
the loaf was broken into pieces, and macerated with successive quantities of 
water, and the whole afterwards filtered ; a clear liquid was obtained, a por- 
tion of which was tested with chloride of barium and with ammonia, and a 
precipitate obtained in each case. The remainder of the liquid was evapo- 
rated to dryness, and the residue, ignited to burn off any organic matter, 
was dissolved entirely by water and dilute nitric acid. Pure potash added 
to this solution gave a dense precipitate, insoluble in an excess of the pot- 
ash. The filtered liquid from this precipitate, after the addition of chloride 
of ammonium in excess, remained perfectly clear, showing the total absence 
of alumina. 

The bread, after maceration, was incinerated, and the ash dissolved in 
dilute nitric acid, and the solution treated with pure potash in excess, a pre- 
cipitate was left, which was removed on a filter, and the filtered liquid 
on addition of chloride of ammonium gave a large precipitate of alumina. 

From these results it will be seen that macerating the bread in water does 
not dissolve out any alum from it, and that from any experiments made in 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. ~ 339 
‘ < 


this way for the detection of adulteration with alum, the results must be 
quite fallacious. Many experiments have been made in this way, namely, 
by the macerating process, aud some persons wito have done so have given 
testimony that they have found alum in the bread; but it must be clear that 
they were satisfied with simply testing the watery liquid from the bread by 
the chloride of barium and the ammonia, and concluded that the precipitates 
they obtained were from the sluphuric acid and alumina of the alum. By 
experiment it was ascertained that a much larger amount of alum might 
have been added to the bread than was done in this case, and the same con- 
clusions arrived at. 

These results prove that the alum is decomposed in the baking of the 
bread ; the alumina of the alum combining with the phosphorie acid. of the 
phosphates already in the flour, forms phosphate of alumina, a salt perfectly 
insoluble in water. 

Objection was made to the other process, which was to incinerate the 
bread and dissolve the ash in dilute nitric acid, and test for the alumina in 
the solution, on account of the very long time before the organic part of the 
bread is burnt away; and it was proposed to simply char the bread, and 
afterwards to deflagrate the coaly mass with nitre, and then to add water 
only; the carbonate of potash formed by the deflagration of the nitre, dis- 
solves up, and along with it nearly all the alumina, alumina being very con- 
siderably soluble in a carbonate of potash solution, and from which chicride 
of ammonium in excess wiil precipitate it. 

Another process for detecting when alum has been used in the baking of 
bread, founded upon the mordanting properties of the salis of alumina, was 
given, and it was said to be accurate, and if so it is easy; it is simply to im- 
merse for a few hours a piece of the suspected bread in a fresh and dilute 
decoction of logwood, made with ordinary pump water; pure bread is said to 
be superficially stained by the pale orange-red color of the decoction, whilst 
alumed bread is dyed a purple color, and to some depth. 

It was stated it was difficult to judge of the quantity of the alumina 
simply by the eye, since its appearance varies much with the mode of iis 
precipitation. 


ON THE CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF THE POTATO. 


At the last meeting of the British Association Mr. J. W. Rogers pre- 
sented a paper “on the chemical properties of the potato, and its uses as a 
general article of commerce if properly manipulated,” the object of which 
was to show that the matter of the potato was in reality equal in nutritive 
value to the dry matter of wheat, whilst the quantum of food produced from 
& given quantity of land was nearly four times that produced from wheat. 
He exhibited some interesting specimens of the production of the potato in 
meal, flour, ctc., and gave the following results of analysis : — 


Starch. Gluten. Oil. 
lb. Ib. lb. 
Components of the potato per ewt. 84-077 14-818 1:104 


Do. of wheat 78-199 17-535 4-265 


340 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 

: & 
And gave the following important fact as to the quantum of food from an 
acre of land : — 


Starch. Gluten. Oil. 
Dry matter of potato. ......ceccsecees sees 03,427 Ibs. 604 lbs. 45 lbs. 
Dry matter of wheat. .........seseeeuee ase. OO 185 45 


Thus the total nutriment from an acre of land is — 


ROP OMACHIE IO OLALO cc. slain a sine Slane sic nies Hine aia sahe mele) s same eam sje ad.n »«--40°76 Ibs. 
Bee NMAC MAGR GEMM fo a) sic iniaintmin a talale\s 1 'eheip\a!\ alanis wle/nin afola‘afale s telae 10°55 lbs. 


The preparations of meal and flour, prepared from the potato, and ex- 
hibited by Mr. Rogers, appeared to be almost alike in appearance to wheaten 
flour and meal, and excited much interest. 


ARTIFICIAL MILK. 


For some time a liquid has been prépared which is said to have so far the 
qualities of milk that it is called artificial milk or “lait-viande.” It is pre- 
pared as follows. Into a Papin’s digester three kilograms of fresh pounded 
bones are put and one kilogram of meat, with five or six times as much of 
water. The top is hermetically closed ; double sides surround it, and in the 
cavity between, a current of steam circulates which raises the temperature 
of the digester up to 140 deg. Fah. At the end of forty minutes after reach- 
ing this temperature, a stop-cock with a small orifice is opened which lets out 
a vapor having the odor of broth; but some seconds after, there issues a 
white liquid which is nothing but the artificial milk. After this milk has 
passed out, the digester contains only the meat, the boiled bones, and a soup 
of inferior quality. The artificial milk resembles milk in color, consistence, 
odor, and even taste. But in composition it is different; for it is only an 
emulsion produced by the fat mixed with the water by means of the gelatine. 
Although the name artificial milk is not proper, it has some nutritious quali- 
ties, and for this reason it is now under trial at the hospitals of Paris. 


USE OF ARSENIC IN STEEPING GRAIN FOR SEED. 


Boussingault has communicated to the Annales de Chimie some experi- 
ments on the use of arsenic in steeping grain for seed. ‘This process has two 
objects, the one to protect the harvest from disease, the other to prevent the 
seed from being devoured by vermin. The substances generally used are 
salt, glauber salt, lime and sulphate of copper. But although these may 
hinder the development of cryptogamic sporules, they have little effect in 
preventing the seed from being eaten. The greatest part of the substance 
used remains in the husk, which the animal rejects. 

The most effectual means is the employment of arsenic; this not only pre- 
serves the seed from decay, but if eaten by the vermin, it destroys them, 
being so strongly poisonous. By using arsenic in a soluble form, such as the 
arsenite of soda, it may be added to the grain in perfectly definite propor- 
tions. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE: 341 


Sod 


Boussingault’s process is as follows: — A solution Ae. Sie of soda is 
prepared, which contains fifty-seven grammes of arsenious acid in thie litre. 
Of this arsenical solution, three and a half litres are taken and added to 
twelve and a half litres of water. A hectolitre of corn is placed in a large 
tub, and these sixteen litres of mixture are added, the corn being continually 
stirred. In about an hour the whole of the liquid is absorbed, and the grain 
is then dried. It is, of course, necessary to exercise extreme care in using 
the arsenical solution, and it is well to color it strongly by the addition of 
sulphate of iron and prussiate of potash, so that its presence would be readily 
betrayed. 

This steeping is not an unprofitable affair, for it first effectually preserves 
the harvest, and, secondly, by killing the vermin which might devour it, con- 
verts them into useful manure. 


ON SOME PRINCIPLES CONCERNED IN DYEING. 


M. Kuhlmann having remarked that when eggs were dyed, some of them 
took colors better than others, and that this fixation of the color took place 
without any mordant, was led to suppose that, in these cases, the fixation 
was not due to the calcareous salt, of which the egg-shell is formed, but to 
the azotized coating upon its surface. This supposition was verified by ex- 
periment. As the coating of the egg-shell is very analogous to albamen, 
this latter substance, coagulated by heat, was tried separately in baths of 
Brazil wood, ete., and its absorbing power thus shown. M. Kuhlmann then 
tried the use of this substance, for the purpose of increasing the absorbing 
power of different tissues ; he obtained very favorable results with cotton, 
less distinct with silk, scarcely perceptible with wool; these trials were made 
with Brazil wood, madder, and campeachy wood. After albumen, he tried 
with the same success milk and caseum, which may be coagulated on the 
surface of the tissues by means of an acid. Milk, especially alone or in 
connection with mordants, gave the cotton very full colors. He experi- 
mented also upon gelatine coagulated by tannin, and obtained results. 
although feeble, without mordants. He also showed that albumen may 
serve as a medium for precipitating upon stuffs, metallic oxides, with which 
it forms insoluble compounds; in dyeing, stuffs impregnated with these 
compounds, absorb colors with more ease than if they had been prepared 
with albumen, or with the same metallic salts alone. Analogous results 
were obtained with tannin-gelatine. — Z’Jnstitut., 26th Nov. 


ON THE PRESENCE OF FLUORINE IN THE BLOOD. 


- M. Nickles, in a communication to Silliman’s Journal, states that having 
established the much-contested question of the existence of fluorine in the 
bones, “I next looked for it in the blood — the only means by which it could 
penetrate into the osseous tissues. I have found there notable proportions, 
not only in human blood, but also in that of several Mammalia, (as the 
sheep, ox, dog,) and several birds (the turkey, duck, goose, hen).” 
7 ae 


342 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Results so congordant, seem. to give to fluorine an importance which it 
has not yet had in medicine and physiology. They set aside the opinion of 
Befzelius that the presence of fluorine in the bones is purely accidental and 
not in any case a necessary ingredient. If we wish other proof of the neces- 
sity of reconsidering the conclusion of this illustrious chemist, we have them 
in the following facts: that flourine exists in the bile, in the albumen of the 
egg, in gelatine, in urine, in saliva, in hair; in a word, the animal organiza- 
tion is penetrated by fluorine and it may be expected to be found in all the 
liquids which impregnate it. 

In view of these facts, which I have verified with exactness and all pos- 
sible care, it is evident that fluorine plays in the blood and other liquids of 
the system a physiological part. Its absence or its diminunition must consti- 
tute of itself a state of disease, a species of chlorose from the absence of 
fluorine, analogous to the chlorose from the absence of iron. This disease 
may be detected no doubt by a chemical examination of the urine or saliva, 
and may be met by a fluorid preparation. Thus far, my own experiments 
have been made only on normal urine, from an adult in perfect health or 
from healthy children. 


EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 


An opportunity has been recently afforded to Dr. F. §. Smith, Professor 
of the Institutes of Medicine in the medical department of Pennsylvania 
College, of examining and re-experimenting upon St. Martin, the Canadian, 
with a fistulous orifice in his stomach. This opening, which was occasioned 
by a gun-shot wound at an early period of his life, has never healed, although 
the surrounding wound cicatrized readily. The original experiments and 
observations made on digestion, by the late Dr. Beaumont, by the aid of 
this man, are familiar to every physiologist. ‘The experiments undertaken 
by Dr. Smith, were made with a view of settling several undetermined ques- 
tions relating to the physiological action of the stomach, particularly that of 
the nature of the acid contained in the gastric juice. It must be premised 
that the analyses were made upon the fluids obtained from the stomach 
while digestion was in progress. 

In every instance, and with all the kinds of food employed, the reaction 
of the fluid of digestion was distinctly acid to litmus paper, while that of the 
empty stomach, (as shown by the introduction of test papers through the 
fistulous orifice), and of the fluid obtained by mechanical irritation, was as 
distinctly neutral. The temperature of the stomach, while digestion was in 
progress, was about 100° to101° Fahr. When empty, about 98° to 99° Fahr. 

The general conclusions arrived at, by Dr. Smith, from a great number of 
experiments, are as follows: 

ist. That the secretions of the stomach, when digesting, are invariably . 
acid. 

2d. That the acid reaction was not due to the presence of phosphoric 
acid. 

3d. That 7f hydrochloric acid was present, it was in very small quan- 
tities. 


. 
r 
+ 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 543 


4th. That the main agent in producing the characteristic reaction was 
lactic acid. 

Important observations were also made by Dr. Smith upon the influence 
of the gastric juice upon the various alimentary principles. These observa- 
tions, which do not admit of suficient abridement for republication in these 
pages, may be found in a memoir recently issued by Dr. S. on this subject. 


ON THE USE OF PURE CARBON AS A MEDICINE. 


At the Dublin meeting of the British Association much interest was ex- 
cited in a theory brought forward by Mr. Jasper Rogers, in favor of the use, 
medicinally, of a pure carbon, which possesses the power of absorbing many 
volumes of gases which act injuriously upon the human system. He exhibited 
several preparations prepared for this purpose from carbonized peat, and 
testimonials of their value from eminent medical authorities. 


EXCRETORY PRODUCTS OF LONDON. 


Taking the adult population of London at 2,000,000, and assuming that 
all the solids secreted by their kidneys are carried into the Thames, the river 
must hold in solution, or have suspended in its waters, a mean daily supply 
of one hunéred and eighty-one tons of solid urinary products. The quantity, 
however, varies with the weather; for, according to the above results, the 
Thames will contain ten tons more on days when the readings of the barom- 
eter and thermometer are decreasing than when they are inereasing ; a daily 
mean of three tons more when the humidity of the air is decreasing than 
when it is increasing ; seven tons more on ozone days than when there is no 
ozone; about ten tons more with south than with north winds, and a daily 
mean of seventy-five tons more during calm and gentle variable breezes than 
when there is a current of air. Let agriculturists bear in mind, that from 
the action of the kidneys alone of a London population, 66,016 tons of British 
guano are annually swept into the Thames. — Dr. Moffatt, in Medical Times 
and Cazette. 

AMMONIA IN DEW. 


M. Boussingault has communicated to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, 
some interesting determinations as to the quantity of ammonia contained in 
dew. The dew collected on six different nights between the middle of 
August and the end of September, at Licbfrauenberg, contained on an aver- 
age 4:92 milligrammes per litre (about 0°3 grain per gall.) This shows the 
nutritive effects of heavy dews. M. B. also showed how this ammonia was 
absorbed by porous substances. The following substances pulverized and 
exposed to the air for two or three days, absorbed the amounts of the gas 
‘noted. 


Ln ere pace artes 0:0000005. Sand,............... ..-- -0°0000008. 
Phosphate of lime,............0°0000008. Wood, charcoal,..... ... 070000029. 


Repeating his experiments in Paris, obtaining the dew artificially by con- 
densing the moisture of the air upon a cold cylinder of metal, he obtained 


344 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


10-8 mm. per litre (or 0°66 gr. per gall.) cf ammonia, and traces of nitric 
acid. This experiment shows that the atmosphere of our cities is more 
strongly charged with ammonia, than that of the country. 


ON THE USE OF BICHROMATE OF POTASH FOR PRESERVATIVE 
SOLUTIONS. a 


A correspondent of the Medical Times and Gazette says : — This salt, in 
the proportion of about four grains to an ounce of water, constitutes a solu- 
tion quite equal to alcohol in its antiseptic powers, and which costs only about 
twopence a gallon. It will deprive a specimen already partially decomposed, 
of all odor, and preserve it for any length of time. As, instead of hardening, 
it a little softens tissues immersed in it, it has a great advantage over both 
alconol and Goadby’s solution, for all objects which are intended to be re- 
examined, especially if the microscope is to be used. Preparations long kept 
in it become of a light olive green color externally, but retain most perfectly 
their natural appearance at a little depth from the surface. The change of 
color in the case of red structures, such as muscle, may be prevented by the 
addition of a little nitrate of potash. In the same way, if it is desired, the 
softening may be prevented by the use of alum. Unless in combination with 
both the two last-named ingredients, it is scarcely adapted for a permanent 
solution. The great advantage over all others, is, in respect to specimens 
intended to be kept for limited periods, either for private dissection or for 
exhibition. These intended for the microscope are far less spoiled by it than 
by any other which I am acquainted with. ‘The only odor which it gives to 
specimens is a very peculiar one, resembling that of new kid gloves. The 
cheapness and efficiency of this salt will, I think, make it quite a boon to 
pathologists. 


WATERS OF ARTESIAN WELLS. 


On examining the waters of the Artesian well of Grenelle, with reference 
to the gases present, M. Peligot has ascertained that they contain not the 
least trace of air. Subterranean waters ought thercfore to be erated before 
being used as an aliment, and accordingly they are about to construct at 
Grenelle a species of tower, from the tep of which the water will descend in 
innumerable threads, so.as to present as much surface as possible to the air. 


RESEARCHES ON THE PRODUCTION OF OZONE. 


M. de Luca,in a communication to the French Academy, states, that, 
having found that by passing humid ozonized air over potassium and pure 
potassa, he obtained nitrate of potassa, which could be separated from the 
alkaline solutions by means of crystallization; he desired to ascertain 
whether the oxygen disengaged from the leaves of plants by the action of 
solar light, or the air which surrounds plants during vegetation, presented the 
characters of ozone. As the result of his researches, M. Luca says, that he 
has not obtained results which agree in many trials and experiments made 
with leaves, whether detached or not detached from several plants, or with 


CHEMICAL SCIENGE. 345 


entire plants, or in the neighborhood of extensive vegetation. Generally 
the litmus paper has become discolored, but starched or ioduretted paper 
only takes a blue color under certain circumstances. Thus, with many of 
the cactus family, the starched ioduretted paper does not become colored ; 
it is sometimes colored by the action of light in the presence of the green 
leaves of herbaceous plants, more rarely with the leaves of rose-trees, fre- 
quently in contact with or in the neighborhood of moss, very rarely in an 
inhabited locality. 

Not being able to draw any certain conclusions from these results, and as 
the ozonomical paper is a very unfaithful re-agent, and liable to become 
colored under the most various conditions, M. Luca tried some comparative 
experiments upon the air surrounding a great many plants kept in a hot 
house, and the free atmospheric air in a locality far removed from yegeta- 
tion. For this purpose he arranged an apparatus in the hot-house of the 
Botanic Garden at the Luxembourg. An aspirator caused the air to pass 
slowly during the day, first into two glass tubes full of carded cotton, 
then into sulphuric acid, then over potassium, and finally into dilute 
solutions of pure potassa. ‘The examination of the acid and alkaline 
solutions after six months from April 1856, gave the following results :— 
The sulphuric acid contained ammonia, in considerable quantity; in 
the alkaline solutions, to the number of three were found; in the first, the 
reactions of nitric acid, and some small crystals of the nitrate, and in the 
other two, the reactions of nitrates, but no crystals. 

A similar apparatus, arranged at the same time in the court of the labora- 
tory of France, a place cut off from vegetation, gave the following resulis : 
Ammonia was found as before in the sulphuric acid of the apparatus, which 
undoubtedly proceeded from the atmosphere; but it was impossible to find 
the least trace of nitric acid in the alkaline solutions. 

These facts show that the alkaline solutions do not produce nitrites dur- 
ing the day with a current of air containing ammonia, when this current is 
far away from vegetation, and that, on the contrary, the air of a hot-house, 
in which are a great many plants of all kinds, produces nitrates with alka- 
line solutions, even after passing through sulphuric acid, and thus deprived 
of ammonia. Is this because plants act like porous bodies on the elements 
of nitric acid contained in the atmosphere? Direct experiments made far 
from vegetation with porous bodies of mineral origin prove the contrary, for 
they do not produce nitrates. 

The experiments of Messrs. Andrews confirm the opinion that ozone, far 
from being a per-oxide of hydrogen, is only modified oxygen, capable of 
being estimated with the utmost precision. On the other hand, the phe- 
nomena of oxidation which ozone .produces are not rare, and we know 
how to take advantage for chemical analysis, of oxonized essence of 
turpentine, of the ozone produced during the combustion of ether in contact 
with platinum, etc. We know, likewise, that urea is formed in the animal 
economy ; and M. Béchamp has proved that this body may be produced 
artificially by the oxidation of albuminoid substances, by means of hyper- 
manganate of potash. 


346 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


It is not improbable that the oxygen of the air introduced into the economy 
by the phenomena of respiration and retained condensed or modified by the 
globules of the blood, in the presence of an alkaline matter, is found in it, at 
least in part, in the state of ozone, like oxygen dissolved in essence of tur- 
pentine, and consequently in a state to produce the same phenomena of 
oxidation. hese views are supported by some experiments made with per- 
manganate of potash, the oxygen of which being disengaged by sulphuric 
acid, presents the properties of ozone, even at a low temperature, and the 
latter investigations of Schonbein relative to the property presented by the 
juice of certain champignons to transform oxygen into ozone. 

“Tf we now wish to examine these facts so as to explain the results which 
Ihave obtained,” says M. Luca, “‘we should be tempted to imagine that 
the oxygen which is disengaged from the leaves of plants by the action of 
light contains ozone, or that the air which surrounds plants is partially ozon- 
ized, and that this ozone, although in small quantity, produces the oxida- 
tion of the nitrogen of the air to form nitric acid in the same way that ozone 
artificially prepared, produces nitrates with the alkalies. The question of the 
absorption of nitrogen by plants would consequently be reduced to a pure 
and simple absorption of a nitrogenous compound, such as nitrate or carbon- 
ate of ammonia, this carbonate being formed in the atmosphere, and the 
nitrate being produced under the influence of vegetation. But the above 
facts are not sufficiently numerous to render them indisputable facts. They 
require repetition under different conditions, and longer and unremitted study. 
— Comptes Rendus. 

Action of the Oxides of Nitrogen upon Iodide of Potassium and Starch. — 
M. Béchamp states that, 

1. The ozonometric paper is not rendered blue by pure dilute nitric acid, 
but that it is colored by acid containing nitrous acid. 

2. Nitric acid and hydriodic acid do not react in cold solution. 

8. Iodide of potassium reduces nitrous acid to nitric oxide 

4. Carbonic acid does not displace nitrous acid from nitrate of potash. 

5. Nitrous oxide and nitric oxide do not liberate iodine from iodide of 
potassium. 

Observations on Ozone in Canada.— At the Montreal meeting of the 
American Association, Mr. Chas. Smallwood presented the result of nearly 
six thousand ozone observations, including a series taken during 1854, the 
cholera year. ‘These observations were made at his residence, at St. Mar- 
tins,in Canada. This place is situated one hundred and cighteen feet above 
the level of the sea, about nine miles due west of Montreal, and about the 
centre of the island of Jesus, which is surrounded by the two branches of 
the Ottawa. 

The method of observing ozone, was by the ozonometer, consisting of 
slips of paper wetted with a solution of starch, and iodide of potassium, in 
the proportion of one drachm of starch to one ounce of water, with ten 
grains of iodide of potassium. This must be kept dry and {free from light 
till wanted, when it was to be exposed to the light, but excluded from the 
sun’s rays. The amount of ozone in the atmosphere was estimated in 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 347 


tenths; the extreme blue with which the paper was tinged when the ozone 
was plentiful, being called ten, diminishing to zero, as the shade became less 
strong. The presence of nitric acid would also mark this last paper. It 
had been said that slips of this paper exposed at a high altitude had exhibited 
a deeper shade than those exposed simultaneously at a lower one. His ob- 
servations did not corroborate this idea, though he had exposed slips at a 
height of eighty feet, and others at a height of only four feet, from the ground. 
Iie suggested, for the sake of uniformity and comparison, that five feet 
should be the standard altitude in future observations. The presence of 
ozone was usually accompanied by a low reading of the barometer, which 
continues during the continuance of the presence of the ozone; and was 
usually also accompanied by rain or snow. He had traced ozone in the at- 
mosphere with the thermometer at 20° below, and 80° above, zero; but in 
general it was in large quantities in the air during falls of rain and snow. The 
cyclometer was a sure indication of ozone, and a moist atmosphere seemed 
necessary for its generation. He was, from this circumstance, led to compare 
the presence of ozone with the precipitation of rain or snow, and he had these 
results. During the last seven years there were 918 days with rain or snow, 
and 816 days when ozone was indicated. In 1850 there were 150 days with 
rain or snow, and 119 with ozone; in 1851, 123 days with rain or snow, and 
135 days of ozone ; in 1852, 136 days with rain or snow, and 152 days with 
ozone ; in 1853, 136 days with rain or snow, and 114 days of ozone ; in 1854, 
the year of cholera, 133 days of rain or snow, with only 73 days of ozone ; 
in 1855, 140 days of rain or snow, and 100 cf ozone; in 1856, 144 days of 
rain or snow, and 144 of ozone. The days marked were in all cases those 
in which the ozone exceeded 5°. The small amount of ozone present during 
the year 1854, favored the idea of a deficiency of that principle in the atmos- 
phere during the prevalence of cholera, and the deficiency occurred during 
almost every month of the year, though the days of rain or snow were not 
below the average number. Here seemed to be a confirmation of the opinion 
that there was a deficiency of ozone during the prevalence of this epidemic. 
Southerly and easterly winds, from which rain and snow usually came, were 
generally accompanied by indications of the presence of ozone, while north- 
erly or westerly winds seldom led to its development. During its presence 
there was no special condition of the atmosphere appreciable by instruments, 
except the existence of moisture. Schonbein thought it depended on the 
electrical condition of the atmosphere ; but, from 6,000 observations, he had 
not been able to establish that fact. Nor was its presence always simulta- 
neous with the Aurora Borealis, as had been supposed. ‘The fact that a 
moist atmosphere was necessary for its development, might account for its 
being developed in greater quantities near the sea than elsewhere. 


ON THE CORROSION OF FRESH-WATER SHELLS. 


At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, in 1856, Dr. 
Weinland made the following remarks upon the Corrosion of the Shells of 
Fresh-water Clams : 


348 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


It is generally believed and stated in the books, that the corrosion of the 
shells of fresh-water clams, which is observed upon the beak, and which fre- 
quently extends over the whole surface of the shell, as in Unio complanatus, 
Anodonta implicata, and Lampsilis radiata, for instance, is effected by the 
dissolving properties of fresh water when impregnated with carbonic acid. 
It is supposed that the carbonate of lime is converted into the bicarbonate, 
and in this state dissolved by the water. This process may sometimes take 
place, but it does not seem to be the commencement of the corrosion. In 
all the specimens of Anodonta implicata which he had collected at Fresh 
Pond (about sixty), he found little holes, or channels, from one to three 
lines in length, piercing the epidermis, and presenting sharp edges, such as 
would not have been likely to result from a chemical process. Morcover, he 
found in many of these holes small worms, and therefore he was inclined to 
suppose that they commence the process of corrosion in the shell; that they 
perforate the epidermis, and after the removal of this, the chemical process 
above alluded to may take place. How far the same supposition may prove 
true with regard to sea-shells he was not prepared to say. 

At a subsequent mecting of the Society, during the past year, a communi- 
cation on the same subject, suggested by the remarks of Dr. Weinland, was 
presented by Dr. James Lewis, of Mohawk, N. J. In this communication 
Dr. L. says: 

Although I assent to the propositions of Dr. Weinland, as being sufficient 
to explain the subject in some instances, I have not regarded the presence of 
small worms on shells, nor the presence of carbonic acid in water, as suffi- 
cient to account for the great diversity of appearances presented by the same 
species in different localities. 

From what information I have been able to obtain in relation to the geolo- 
gical characters of various regions in which shells are found, it appears that 
those bodies of water having large quantities of calcareous salts in solution 
produce shells very little liable to erosion; while on the contrary, where 
there is very littlelime, and the water holds in solution considerable quanti- 
ties of saline, alkalies, and ferruginous salts, the shells are very liable to be 
eroded. Among the numerous specimens that I have, illustrating the above, 
are laree numbers of shells from streams in Georgia, where the waters 
abound in saline alkalies. The shells are very generally eroded. I have 
also shells from other regions where the saline alkalies are more abundant 
than lime, and they present the same character. 

I have also shells from Ohio, Lllinois, Wisconsin, etc., which are from 
streams abounding in lime, and an eroded specimen is seldom to be seen 
among them, except, perhaps, a few aged shells that are evidently worn by 
long contact with abrading surfaces of other bodies. 

I have also shells from a lake in Herkimer county, N. Y., nearly all of 
which have perfect beaks, and the few that are eroded are by no means as 
chalky in their texture as some specimens [ have seen from localities deficient 
in lime. The bottom of the lake, in the instance specified, is a bed of marl. 

But more satisfactory proof that the freedom of shells from erosion de- 
pends on the relative proportions of various salts or alkalies in solution in 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 349 


the water, is presented in a limited body of water, under my own immediate 
inspection. 

Near the village of Mohawk, is a slowly-moving body of water, in which 
considerable numbers of sliells are found. Jn those portions of this body of 
water where the various salts bear their natural and proper relation to each 
other, the shells are very perfect and generally free from erosions. But at, 
and below, where the refuse ashes from an ashery are drained or leached into 
this body of water after every shower, a considerable quantity of saline alkali 
finds its way into the water, where, in consequence of its specific gravity, 
it falls to the bottom, and every shell within reach of the influence of this 
alkaline matter, is more or less eroded, and most of them very much so. 
But further down, the shells grow more perfect, probably in consequence of 
the dilution of the alkalies, and their more general diffusion in the whole body 
of the water, by the influence of the slight current in it. 

It may be thought strange that the presence of saline alkalies in water is 
urged as the cause of the erosion of shells, but it may be explained in this 
way. Where two or more alkalies are present in the food of an animal, and 
only one of them is necessary and proper to enable it to perform its healthy 
functions, the others may, in part, take the place of the proper substance, and 
if so, the shell formed under such circumstances would be more or less liable 
to erosion, in proportion to the solubility of the substituted materials. 

We have now only to inquire respecting a locality producing eroded shells, 
—TIs the water so highly charged with lime, that the presence of a more 
soluble alkali in small quantity can have no material influence in the forma- 
tion of the shells? If the answer be yes, then we may reasonably ascribe 
the eroded character of the shells of such a locality entirely to minute para- 
sites ; but if there be a preponderance of saline alkalies in the water, they 
may be reasonably expected to enter into the organization of the shells, and 
a very slight abrasion of the epidermis of the shell from any cause, would 
expose the soluble alkalies to the solvent action of water alone, and the 
remaining portion of the shell becoming less dense (and “chalky”’) by a 
removal of a portion of its substance, would, of course, wear away very 
rapidly. It is easy to understand why the beaks of bivalves, and the apices 
of univalves are first attacked by the erosive process. Firstly, the epidermis 
is thinner at those points : secondly, those portions of the shell formed in early 
life may be presumed to contain more gelatinous, and less calcarious, matter 
than the parts formed at or near maturity. I do not know demonstratively 
that this is the case, but analogy teaches it. 


30 


GEOLOGY. 


RECENT PROGRESS IN GEOLOGY. 


Of the geological changes still in operation, none are more remarkable than 
the formation of deltas at the mouths of great rivers, and of alluvial land by 
their overflow. Of changes of the latter kind, perhaps the most remarkable 
is the great alluvial deposit formed in the valley of the Nile by the annual 
inundations of that river; and here it fortunately happens that history comes 
to the aid of the geologist. These sedimentary deposits have accumulated 
round the bases of monuments of known age ; and we are, therefore, at once 
furnished with a chronometric scale by which the rate of their formation may 
be measured. ‘The first of the series of measurements undertaken by Mr. 
Horner was made with the co-operation of the Egyptian Government, 
around the obelisk of Heliopolis, a monument built, according to Lepsius, 
2300 years B. c. A more extensive series of researches has been since un- 
dertaken in the district of Memphis ; but Mr. Horner has not yet, I believe, 
published the results. The problems now to be solved in Palcontology are 
clearly defined in the enunciation of the problem recently proposed by the 
French Academy of Sciences as one of its prize questions, viz., “to study 
the laws of distribution of organic beings in the different sedimentary rocks, 
according to the order of their superposition ; to discuss the question of 
their appearance er disappearance, whether simultaneous or successive ; and 
to determine the nature of the relations which subsist between the existing 
organic kingdom and its anterior states.’ The prize was obtained by Prof. 
Bronn, of Heidelberg ; and his Memoir, of which I have only seen an out- 
line, appears to be characterized by views at once sound and comprehensive. 
The leading result seems to be, that the genera and species of plants and 
animals, which geology proves to have existed successively on our globe, 
were created in succession, in adaptation to the existing state of their abode, 
and not transmuted, or modified, as the theory of Lamark supposes, by the 


physical influences which surrounded them.— Address of the President 
British Association for 1857. 


BAYOUS AND DELTA OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 


From a paper recently read before the New York Geographical Society, 
by Erastus Everett, Esq., of New Orleans, “on the Bayous and Delta of 


GEOLOGY. oul. 


the Mississippi,’’ we derive the following memoranda respecting a proposed 
plan for reclaiming a large portion of the Delta for cultivation. 

The paper opens by a reference to the several rivers in the old world — the 
Irrawaddy, the Ganges, the Euphrates and the Tigris in Asia, the Nile in 
Egypt and the Po and Rhine in Europe — having a formation similar to that 
of the Mississippi, — similar in the Deltas formed at their mouths and simi- 
lar in that their waters are higher than the adjacent country. Passing from 
a brief consideration of these, Mr. Everett comes to the Mississippi, the 
Delta of which, reckoning the territory between the main river and the 
Hatchafalaya, or Blackwater River, covers an area of seven thousand 
square miles. ‘The age of this formation, though remote, probably beyond 
the creation of man, is geologically of recent date. Its appearance is most 
remarkable ; from the passes of the Balize to the bluffs of the Baton Rouge, 
where the land rises to a height of from sixty to eighty feet above the river, 
there is not an eminence to relieve the eye. ‘ There is not a single pebble 
in all the Delta.” In order to attain a proper understanding of the forma- 
tion of the bayous it should be remembered that the river through the whole 
delta, instead of being in a valley is upon an eminence. Another element 
to be taken into consideration is the serpentine course of the river in ques- 
tion. The delta is all of it elevated more or less above the gulf on the 
south, and the bays and lakes on the east, at the same time being much 
lower than the river at high water. From this peculiar formation, result 
two classes of bayous ;— the first, such as drain a peninsula or neck of land 
formed by the bends of the river, and drain the neck of land on which are 
situated Carrollton, Lafayette and New Orleans. And second, such as run 
out cf the river, like the Lafourche and Plaquemine. 

The first of these, as they suspend but little sediment, form but small 
ridges, and those are limited to their immediate banks. They are very use- 
ful as natural drains to the district through which they pass. They receive 
tributaries, whereas the bayous of the second sort give them out. These lat- 
ter invariably take their departure from the river at one of its bends, and 
have numerous branches “so that the Mississippi,’ says Mr. Everett, “ from 
the head of the delta is a mighty natural apparatus for irrigation. These 
branches are now for the most part filled up as are indeed the bayous them- 
selves. The filling up of these mouths of the parent stream has caused the 
most disastrous consequences. They were, while open, so many safety- 
valves, through which the periodical deluge spent its destructive power. All 
serious evils to agricultural enterprise might have been prevented by filling 
up their branches and making dykes or levees in the lowest places.” 

To re-open all of these bayous is hardly possible, though some of them 
might be opened with advantage, and would secure the riparian proprictors 
against the losses and inconveniences consequent upon the annual deluge. 
The proposition to build levees is open to objection on account of the vast 
expense, and because if the banks are raised the water will rise also, —for 
it must have vent. What the limit would be can be learned only by actual 
experience. On the other hand, were the bayous open, the levees might be 
much lower than now, and crévasses be yet unknown. 


852 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Lower Louisiana, says Mr. Everett, was settled too soon, and conse- 
quently the lands brought thus too carly under cultivation cannot be re- 
claimed. Before the settlement of the country, when the river was allowed 
to inundate the whole delta, it left upon it deposits of alluvium which is now 
carried down to the mouth, where immense deposits are now formed by 
eddies produced by the meeting of the waters of the river with those of the 
gulf. While these deposits encroach at the rate of ten rods annually upon 
the gulf, large deposits accumulate on the lands where it has not been leveed. 
This natural process of raising the land not being available in cultivated dis- 
tricts, drainage is suggested as a practicable means of producing the same 
result. Large as would be the expense, it would prove remunerative. 

““When,” says Mr. Everett, ‘‘ we consider that all the available agricul- 
tural resources of Lower Louisiana consist of little strips of land, running 
along the rivers and some of the larger outlet bayous, of an average width 
of only a mile, or at most a mile and a half, and still that these resources 
are immense, we cannot forbear asking, What will they be when this 


strip is extended to the width of eight or ten miles? The present genera-- 


tion may not see it, but the time is not distant. It is vain to expect that this 
will be done by appropriations from the State. It will be done by private 
enterprise, for the sake of private advantage. Then will be presented in the 
great delta of the Mississippi, the spectacle that has long been presented in 
Holland, where the ocean even, has been forced to retire before the enter- 
prise of man. Then the extensive districts, which are now inhabited only 
by huge reptiles, will swarm with a happy population. 

The geological formation of Lower Louisiana has till recently been an 
unsolved problem. The boring of an Artesian well in New Orleans has 
furnished a solution of this problem. ‘The thickness of the several strata 
perforated has been ascertained, and may be stated approximately as fol- 
lows :— In penetrating to a depth of 600 feet, five different strata were en- 
countered; first —alluvion, seventy feet; second—dark sand and mud, 
one hundred feet; third —impervious blue clay, twenty feet ; fourth — sand, 
one hundred and forty-five feet ; fifth—impervious clay. This stratum, at 
the time of the last report which I have seen, was not perforated. The 
second stratum contained a great abundance of shells and roots, and the 
fourth contains sufficient water to emit from the tube six gallons per minute. 


ON THE SUBSIDENCE OF LAND ON THE SEA COAST OF NEW JERSEY 
AND LONG ISLAND. 


The following is an abstract of 2 paper on the above subject, read before 
the A A. A. §., Montreal meeting, by Prof. G. H. Cook, of New Jersey. 

In the course of some geological examinations along the coast of South- 
ern New Jersey, my attention was frequently called to various facts indicat- 
ing a change in the relative level of the land and water, at some recent 
period. An attentive examination of these facts has led me to the conclu- 
sion, that a gradual subsidence of the land is now in progress throughout the 
whole length of New Jersey and of Long Island; and from information de- 


ch th ee meal 


GEOLOGY. 330 


rived from others I am induced to think that this subsidence may extend 
along a considerable portion of the Atlantic coast of the United States. 

The occurrence of timber in the marshes and water below tide-level is 
common along our whole Ailantic shore. Almost every person at all fami- 
liar wich shore life has observed the remains of logs, stumps and roots in 
such places. Generaily, however, they have been looked upon as the re- 
mains of trees, torn from their original places of growth by torrents or by 
the wearing away of the shores, and deposited where they are found by the 
ordinary action of the water. To any one who examines them carcfully it 
soon becomes evident that they grew upon the spots where they now are. 
The stumps remain upright; their roots are stiil fast in the firm loamy 
ground which underlies the marsh — and their bark and small roots remain 
attached to them. The localities, too, where they are most abundant, are 
such as are least liable to be affected by the violent action of the water or of 
storms. ‘Thus they are by far the most abundant on the low and gently- 
sloping shores of Long Island, New Jersey, and all the states further south, 
which are protected from the violent action of the surf by a line of sand 
beaches, at the same time that the numerous inlets allow free access to the 
tides. In these protected situations, hundreds and even thousands of acres 
can be found, in which the bottoms of the marshes and bays are as thickly 
set with the stumps of trees, as is the ground of any living forest. 

The first and chief part of my own observations were made upon the south 
ern part of New Jersey, following the shore of Delaware Bay from its head 
down to Cape May, and the Atlantic shore from Cape May north to Great 
Egg Harbor. The examinations have since been continued along the shore 
to New York City, and thence eastward at several points along the south 
shore of Long Island. 

I may remark that the remains of trees are not equally abundant in all 
localities, owing partly perhaps to differences of exposure, but more to the 
difference in durability of the various species of wood. In many places, 
where oak, gum, and other deciduous trees were known to stand formerly, 
there are no traces of them now; they have entirely rotted away. On the 
contrary, the pine and the red and white cedar are almost indestructible. I 
have seen pine stumps several feet under the marsh, where they have been 
for an unknown period, which retain the characteristic smell and appearance 
of the wood almost as perfectly as the fresh-cut specimens. At several places 
in southern New Jersey an enormous amount of white cedar timber is found 
buried in the salt marshes, sound and fit for use, and a considerable business 
is carried on in mining this timber and splitting it into shingles for market. 
In some places it is found so near the surface that fragments of the roots 
and branches are seen projecting above the marsh, while in other cases, the 
whole is covered with smooth meadow sods, and there is no indication of 
what is beneath till it is sounded by thrusting a rod down into the mud. 

It is in deposits where these durable species of wood are found that we 
get the most accurate idea of the depth to which these remains extend. At 
Dennisville, there is a large tract of marsh underlaid by cedar swamp earth 
and timber. By probing the marsh with an iron rod the workmen find 


30* 


354 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


where the solid timber lies, and then, removing the surface, sods and roots, 
they manage to work in the mud and water with long one-handled saws, and 
cut off the logs, which, as soon as they are loosened, rise and float, and of 
course are easily managed. The timber is not water-logged at all, but 
retains its buoyancy, and the removal of that nearest the surface releases that 
which is below, and it rises, so that a new supply is constantly coming up to 
the workman. In this way a single piece of swamp which is below tide-level 
has been worked for fifty years past, and still gives profitable returns. ‘The 
timber is found lying in every direction, some appearing to have been blown 
down by the wind, and some appearing to have dicd and fallen after it was 
partially decayed. The fallen timber has been covered by the accumulation 
of muck from the decayed leaves and twigs, and other timber has grown on 
this, to fall and in its turn give place to still another growth. How long this 
accumulation has been going on it is impossible to tell. Dr. Beesley, of 
Dennisville, counted 1080 rings of annual growth in a stump, and lying 
directly under this, so that it must have fallen before this grew, was a log 
with 500 rings. I have seen them lying in this way, log under log, indicat- 
ing that thousands of years must have passed while they were accumulating. 
And this is only the superficial portion of it. 

Instances of submerged trees are not confined to the coast of New Jersey, 
but they occur along the whole coast of the Atlantic States, from the Bay 
of Fundy to Florida. 

There is another class of facts somewhat similar to those above-mentioned, 
and of common occurrence along our shores, from which these should be 
distinguished. The facts to which I refer are such as the following. At 
Cape Island, Cape May county, there are found stumps of oak trees at tide 
level which have been covered by twelve or fouricen feet of upland soil — 
cultivated farm land—and have but recently been exposed by the wearing 
away of the shores. At Union, on Raritan Bay, in solid earth and about two 
feet below low water, common hard-wood stumps were found, in digging a 
large basin. Upright stumps of trees have also been found in digging wells 
on the upland, at numerous places near tide water, on Delaware Bay and 
the Atlantic shores. In similar localities, shells of the common clam, oyster, 
and other recent species have been found in wells, and I have observed them 
at various places several feet above high tide. 

In the bank of Maurice River, seven or eight feet above high water, and 
still covered by several feet of sandy earth, is an oyster bed. It is exposed 
for some rods. The shells are in common blue mud, closely wedged in 
together, and standing with the opening of the valves upwards, just as in the 
living beds. At Tuckahoe, casts and impressions of the common clam are 
found in the gravel at eight or ten feet above high water. And at Port 
Elizabeth, and near Leesburgh, shells of the clam and oyster, and indeed 
of nearly all the species of shellsnow common in the bay are found, covered 
by from two to six feet of sandy loam, and are extensively dug for manure. 
I was lately informed of the existence of an oyster bed under similar circum- 
stances on the beach a little north of Long Branch. Deposits of recent shells 
are found in much the same way, on all our Atlantic coast, and also on the 


GEOLOGY. 305 


Gulf of Mexico. So many accounts have been given by different observers, 
that for the present purpose it is not necessary to specify them. Attention 
is called to them now as indications of a period of subsidence, and then one 
of elevation preceding the present. 

The fossils, it will be perceived, are in circumstances which require that 
the ground should have occupied a much more relative level than the pres- 
ent, and the covering which is over them is upland soil, — portions of that in 
New Jersey are in cultivation, — and are among the most valuable and pro- 
ductive soils in the state. While, on the contrary, the remains of trees, etc., 
which are specially referred to in this paper are all as low as the present 
level of high tide, and are covered only by water, or by marsh mud, and 
roots. They are also of a much more recent date, some of them having 
been growing trees within the memory of persons now living, and the sub- 
sidence which has produced them is one that is still in progress, as I wish now 
to show. 

All along the Delaware Bay there is a salt marsh, from a mile to five 
miles back, and back of it the land is low and almost level. At a point near 
Salem, a portion of what is now salt marsh was, within the memory of man, 
amaple grove on this upland, and an island in the middle of it is still so. 
In another place, land which has been cultivated is now salt marsh. In an- 
other place, land is salt marsh which is mapped in the earlier maps as tim- 
ber ; an owner of an extensive tract there, told me he had lost at least 1,000 
acres of timber land by the advance of the tide uponit. This advance is 
marked every year by its cutting off a small fringe of the timber which dies, 
and the process seems to go on more and more rapidly —and the timber 
which is killed is never replaced by timber, but by salt marsh. I found old 
men who had seen timber growing where now it was marsh, and in some 
places I found long rows of the red cedar standing in the marsh, a foot deep 
or more in the mud of the marsh. 

The lower part of New Jersey is exceedingly favorable for observations of 
this character, from its being so flat that on a railroad line, running through 
Cape May County, the highest point was not more than twenty-eight feet 
above high water, and the average but eleven feet. On such shores it will 
readily be perceived that a very slight depression of the surface must bring 
a broad strip of land under water, and that marks of such depression will 
be found in much greater abundance than in localities where the shores 
are bolder. : 

The people along the shore of such places are very sensible ef this change 
of level between land and water, and are perfectly well satisfied that the re- 
mains of the timber found are in the places where they grew, and that they 
have not gone down by the ground washing away, or becoming more co:n- 
pact. When it was objected to them that the white cedar trees have no tap 
roots, but grow directly upon the muck, and, of course, that they might have 
settled ; it was readily admitted that one might think so, but for the fact 
that when the cedar grows so that its roots can reach hard ground as they 
can when the swamp is shallow, that then the timber is worthless on account 
of the fibres interlocking so that it cannot be split into shingles, and that in 


356 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


shallow swamps, and in the bottoms of the deeper swamps, such timber is 
found, which is to them a plain evidence that it grew there. Further, they 
find at the bottom of such swamps gum and magnolia trees which have 
grown upon the hard ground. Pine stumps are also found at considerable 
depths below the surface ; these are tap-rooted, and their roots reach the solid 
ground so that they are not liable to settle. It is the general impression, 
however, that the cedar swamps do not setile as long as they remain con- 
stantly wet. 

After examining all I have been able to find written upon the subject, and 
after studying it in the field, I can think of no other theory which will app'y to 
all the facts, except that of a slow and continued subsidence of the land. 

The se wear of the shores may fairly be adduced as confirming my 
conclusions in regard to subsidence. A few cases of this rapid wear may be 
given. Egg Island, a point well known to those who are familiar with Dela- 
ware Bay, is put down on the first map, made by the proprietors of West 
Jersey, in 1694, as containing three hundred acres of land. It now contains 
only about three-fourths of an acre at low water, and high tides cover it en- 
tirely. Capt. J. W. Herbert, a very intelligent wreck master, at Keyport, 
has a number of marks on the beaches to determine the location of sunken 
vessels, and from these he is able to measure the wear from year to year, and 
the average which he deduces from these is not less than twelve feet a year 
along the whole shore. On Long Island the wear of the beaches is not so 
uniform, but is perceptible. On the east end of the Island the wear is very 
great, and has attracted attention ever since the first settlement of the 
country. 

As to the rapidity with which this subsidence is going on, we have no very 
certain data. ‘There are some stumps of trees, probably cut within the last 
150 years, which are now run over by high tide, so that the person who 
pointed them out to me was confident that there must have been a change of 
three feet in the tide. Ata milldam one person was confident that the tides 
rose higher than they did twenty years ago, though how much he could not 
tell, for a mark which he had made had become obliterated. At another 
place a miller told me he could not run his mill as long as he used to be able 
to, because the tide backed up against his wheel. He thought he had lost 
eight inches in twenty-five years. At another mill the tide rose some twelve 
or fifteen inches higher, and its wood-work and foundation were placed on 
the solid upland. Another mill, built 100 years ago, has lost so much that 
the tides come up half way on the dam, and they can only run that mill by 
having built another dam below it to keep out the tide. 

Another mill had been watched for twenty-five years, and my informant 
was confident it had lost four inches, and, he thought, more. 

From these facts we may set down the subsidence at, perhaps, two feet in 
a century. 

With the exception of the statements of two pilots, upon the Raritan River, 
I have nothing upon which to base any estimates for the present rate of sub- 
sidence in the vicinity of New York. One of the pilots founds his conclusion 
upon observations made upon the wharf at Washington, and is confident 


GEOLOGY. 357 


there is eight inches more of water there than there was twenty-five years 
ago. The other draws his conclusion from the depth of water upon the reef 
of rocks in the river below New Brunswick, and the depth upon the middle 
ground near Amboy, and from the action of the centre-board of the vessel 
which always touches at these points, he is satisfied that the water is deeper 
than it was thirty years since; but he thinks not six inches deeper. The 
opportunities for accurate observation are much less frequent here than in 
the southern part of New Jersy, but from the phenomena of the marshes and 
of the submerged forests on Long Island and in nothern New Jersey, I 
should infer that there was no material difference in the rate from that 
already deduced. 


ON THE EXISTENCE OF FORCES CAPABLE OF CHANGING THE SEA- 
LEVEL DURING DIFFERENT GEOLOGICAL EPOCHS. 


If, in assuming its present state from an anterior condition of entire fluid- 
ity, the matter composing the crust of the earth underwent no change of 
volume, the direction of gravity at the earth’s surface would remain un- 
changed, and consequently the general figure of the liquid coating of our 
planet. If, on the contrary, as we have reason to believe, a change of vol- 
ume should accompany the change of state of the materials of the earth 
from fluidity to solidity, the mean depth of the ocean would undergo 
gradual, though small changes over its entire extent at successive geolog- 
ical epochs. This result is easily deduced from the general views contained 
in other writings of the author, whence it appears, that if the surface stra- 
tum of the internal fluid nucleus of the earth should contract when passing 
to the solid state, a tendency would exist to increase the ellipticity of the 
liquid covering of the outer surface of the crust. A very small change of 
ellipticity would suffice to lay bare or submerge extensive tracts of the globe. 
If, for example, the mean ellipticity of the ocean increased from one three 
hundredth to one two hundred and ninety-ninth, the level of the sea would 
be raised at the equator by about 228 feet, while under the parallel of fifty- 
two degrees it would be depressed by 196 feet. Shallow seas and banks in 
the latitudes of the British Isles, and between them and the pole, would 
thus be converted into dry land, while low-lying plains and islands near 
the equator would be submerged. If similar phenomena occurred during 
early periods of geological history, they would manifestly influence the 
distribution of land and water during these periods, and with such a direc- 
tion of the forces as that referred to, they would tend to increase the pro-- 
portion of land in the polar and temperate regions of the earth, as com- 
pared with the equatorial regions during successive geological epochs. 
Such maps as those published by Sir Charles Lyell on the distribution of 
land and water in Europe during the tertiary period, and those of M. Elie 
de Beaumont, contained in Beudant’s “ Geology,” would, if sufficiently ex- 
tended, assist in verifying or disproving these views. — Professor Hennessy. 
Proc. British Association, Dublin. 


358 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ON THE SILURIAN SYSTEM. 


At a recent meeting of the Geological Society, London, Sir R. I. Mur- 
cheson, in a paper on the Silurian rocks of Scandinavia and Russia, took oc- 
casion to point out the extent of the great northern Silurian basin. Begin- 
ning with the comparatively small fragments of this great deposit in the 
British Isles, the Silurian rocks may be traced across the main land of 
Sweden, through the islands of Oland and Gothland, to the southern shores 
of the Gulf of Finland. Here they extend through the province of Esthovia, 
south of Revel and Narva, towards St. Petersburg. From the government 
of St. Petersburg, the range taking a direction from W.S.W. to E.N.E., 
is lost beneath the vast deposits of Lakes Ladoga and Onega. It re-ap- 
pears, however, on the flanks of the great Ural chain, and traversing Si- 
beria, is again found in North America, covering a vast extent of Canada, 
occupying in detached masses more than a thousand miles in width from 
Canada to the state of Alabama, and extending westward from New York 
to the furthest western prairies. 

With reference to the European portion of this great Silurian area, the 
northern basin of the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Russia, appears to be 
separated by marked paleontological characters from the Silurian rocks of 
Southern Europe, as they exist in France, Spain, and Bohemia. In limited 
areas, such as that of the British Isles, the evidence derived from fossil re- 
mains was much more restricted than where larger areas were examined. 
For instance, throughout the whole range of the British Silurian rocks, 
definite species of mollusca, crustacea, and corals, were found to charac- 
terize certain beds, but when the whole northern area of the Silurian rocks 
is examined, these species are found to range upwards and downwards into 
other beds, and thus the whole formation is much more converted into one 
unbroken series than would be justified from the examination of the British 
Isles alone. Sir Roderick quoted many examples of upper and middle 
Silurian fossils occurring very low down in the rocks of Scandinavia, and 
thus supported his views so often and so long ago expressed that one un- 
broken chain of life extended from the top of the Silurian series down to the 
base of the Llandeilo flags and Lingula beds. He held it, therefore, im- 
possible to draw any line of separation between the Silurian rocks and those 


which had been called Cambrian, unless that line be drawn at the base of 
the Lingula flags. 


HEIGHT OF NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS. 


The lofty peaks of western North Carolina were barometrically measured 
by Prof. Guyot, in July, 1856, with the following results. ‘These twelve 
summits are all higher than Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which, 
according to Professor Bache’s survey, in 6,285 feet in height. 

1. Clingman’s Peak, 6,701 feet; 2. Guyot’s Peak (or Balsam Cone), 
6,661 feet ; 3. Sandoz Knob, 6,612 feet; 4. Hairy Bear, 6,597 feet; 5. Cat- 
tail Peak, 6,595 feet; 6. Gibbe’s Peak, 6,586 feet; 7. Mitchell’s Peak, 6,576 


GEOLOGY. 309 


feet; 8. Sugar-Loaf (or Hallback Peak), 6,401 feet; 9. Potatoe Top, 6,389 
feet; 10. Black Knob, 6,377 feet; 11, Bowler’s Pyramid, 6,345 feet; 12. 
Roan Mountain, 6,318 feet. 


THE HORIZONTAL HEAVE OF ROCKS. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. Wm. 
B. Rogers made some remarks upon a peculiar geological condition which 
he had noticed in the Slate Rocks of Governor’s Island in Boston harbor, 
and of which he had never seen any notice. At the landing near the fort, 
where the slate is exposed, he had observed a series of ledges of dark gray- 
ish-blue slate, in which is exposed a species of fault known as horizontal 
heave. There are two lines of direction in the beds, and these are at right 
angles with each other. This phenomenon of horizontal heave, combined 
with the system of cross cleavage which is at right angles with the planes 
of bedding, creates some obscurity in some spots as to which are the original 
planes of bedding. In ot/er localities, especially in the Quincy and Brain- 
tree silicious slate in which trilobites have been recently found, the same dif- 
ficulty exists ; rendering it impracticable to obtain perfect specimens of that 
fossil in any amount, since the rock splits off in an opposite direction to that 
in which the animal was deposited. 

This system of horizontal heave has been extensively studied in Europe, 
and has elicited much discussion from geologists and physicists upon the 
theory of the phenomena engaged in its production. It is supposed that a 
great pressure has been applied to the rocky mass, either before or after it 
had reached a complete state of solidity, and that this pressure has produced 
sich a structural arrangement as to develop particular planes of cleavage 
where the adhesion was the slightest. This supposition has been sustained 
by experiment, recently instituted in England, in which it has been demon- 
strated that scales of mica and other material of flattened form, intermingled 
with plastic clay and submitted to continuous and energetic pressure, assume 
approximate parallelism, and impart to the mass a laminar structure. 
Where cleavage shows itself in limestone containing mica scales and flat- 
tened particles of silica, the microscope has detected an approximate degree 
of parallelism between these substances and the cleavage planes. 


ON THE LAKES OF EASTERN ASIA. 


At a recent mecting of the London Geological Society, Mr. Loftus read a 
paper on “An Analysis of the Water in several of the great lakes at the 
base of Mount Ararat, and the Mountain Chains of the Kurdistan between 
Turkey and Persia.” The water of Lake Vann and the others he described 
as remarkable for containing immense quantities of salts, chiefly those of 
soda, as the carbonate of soda, the sulphate of soda, together with chloride 
of sodium (common salt). It was supposed that the springs which feed 
these lakes dissolve large quantities of soda and potash out of the volcanic 
rocks with which they came in contact and deposit these salts in the lakes. 
As the water e¥aporates the strength of the solution increases, year by year, 


360 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and becomes at length so strong as to crystallize when evaporated to a suffi- 
cient extent. It appears the salts contained in these lake waters are used in 
the neighborhood for the manufacture of soap, and Mr. Loftus is of opinion 
if it were not for the great expense of transport they might be profitably 
brought to England, where there are many important uses for these various 
salts of soda. 

At present the material would have to be taken by land carriage over 
seventy miles of sandy country, destitute of roads, in order to reach the Cas- 
pian Sea, and this operates as a complete bar to any commercial speculation 
in the matter. 


THE THEORY OF GLACIERS. 


The interesting phenomena presented by the glaciers of the Alps have of 
late occupied much attention among scientific men. One chief point of dif- 
ficulty is, to account for the existence, in the white porous mass of the gla- 
cier, of lamin, or streaks of blue ice, of superior density to the rest. Pro- 
fessor James Forbes of Edinburgh has offered a theory to account for this ap- 
pearance, which has been hitherto generally accepted in the scientific world. 
He supposes that ice is in a viscous, or, as he sometimes expresses it, a semi- 
fluid state when in motion. ‘The friction at the sides of the glacier prevents 
its lateral portions from moving with the same velocity as the central. Fis- 
sures are supposed to be formed in consequence of this differential motion. 
The drainage water from the surface is next supposed to flow into these fis- 
sures, to become frozen there, and thus to form the blue laminz. ‘The ex- 
planation of the directions in which the lamin run in different parts of the 
glacier is founded upon known laws of motion into which it is needless for 
us now to enter. 

In a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, and in a paper read at the 
Royal Society, Professor Tyndall, in conjunction with Professor Huxley, 
has advanced a new theory. The idea that ice is viscous, he regards as a 
conjecture opposed to common experience. The supposition that the blue 
veins are formed by the drainage water, he rejects, and refers the lamination 
of the glacier to the same general principle, which he has already proved to 
be the cause of the lamination of slate rocks. This principle he illustrates 
by pounding a common slate into an impalpable powder, mixing it with 
water, and then subjecting it to pressure. It splits at right angles to the line 
of pressure, just like the original slate from which it has been formed. 

Professor Tyndall tried the same experiment on snow. A quantity 
of the substance subjected to pressure exhibited on a small scale the struc- 
ture of the glacier. 

The closing up of crevasses, and the establishment of the continuity of the 
glacier after it has been broken into fragments in descending precipitous 
slopes, are accounted for by reference to a principle for which the term “ re- 
gelation” has been suggested by Dr. Hooker. It is found that fragments 
of ice, placed in contact in a hot sun, and even under boiling water, become 
re-united, or frozen together. ‘This fact, as Dr. Tyndall asserts, sufficiently 


——— eh 


GEOLOGY.- => °° * 36r 


accounts for the continuity of the mass of the glacier, without supposing, 
with Professor Forbes, that ice is of a viscous or plastic nature. 

Professor ‘l'yndall has illustrated the laminz, or cleavable nature of ice, 
by many beautiful experiments. In one case, he succeeded in impressing, 
upon a transparent prism of ice, a lamination which might be mistaken for 
that of gypsum. 

By means of a small hydraulic press, he converts spheres of ice into flat 
cakes and transparent lenses—a straight prism of ice six inches long is 
passed through a series of moulds augmenting in curvature, and finally 
comes out bent into a semi-ring. A piece of ice is placed in a hemispherical 
cavity, and is pressed upon by a protuberance not large enough to fill the 
cavity, and is thus squeezed into a cup. In short, every observation made 
upon glaciers, and adduced by writers upon the subject in proof of the plas- 
ticity of ice, is shown to be capable of perfect imitation with hand specimens 
in the laboratory. These experiments demonstrate a capacity on the part 
of small masses of ice hitherto denied to them by writers upon this subject. 
They prove to all appearance that the substance is even more plastic than it 
has hitherto been supposed to be. 


ASCENT OF CHIMBORAZO. 


The summit of the Chimborazo has lately been found to be quite ascend- 
able. When Baron Humboldt, with his friend Bonpland, on the 23d of 
June, 1802, meant to ascend the Chimborazo, which at that time was con- 
sidered to be the highest mountain on earth, he had to turn back at the 
height of 5,909 métres, an insurmountabie wall of rock barring his advance. 
Boussingault, the second who attempted the ascent, arrived, on the 16th of 
December, 1831, only up to 6,004 metres, —ninety-five métres higher than 
Humboldt. A late number of the Journal des Debats publishes a letter from 
the French traveller, M. Jules Rémy, who, in company with an English 
traveller, Mr. Brenchley, ascended the mountain from a different side, on 
the 3d of November, 1856; and, although wrapped in entirely by thick veils 
of clouds, and forced by a violent storm to return, yet attained the height 
of 6,543 métres (according to Humboldt’s trigonometrical survey, the height 
of the mountain is 6,544 métres), where the travellers lit a fire. It is ques- 
tionable if M. Rémy reached the absolute top of the mountain, but no doubt 
is now left that this can be accomplished. ‘The column of air at that height 
was still quite sufficient for breathing. The shortness of breath and the 
other symptoms usually noticed on reaching such heights have been per- 
ceived neither by M. Remy nor by his English companion, ¢s the former ex- 
pressly states. 


ON THE DENSITY AND MASS OF COMETS. 
BY M. BABINET. 


_ All astronomers are agreed that the mass and density of comets are very 
small, and that their attraction cannot produce any sensible. effect upon the 
9 
31 


362 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


movements of the planetary bodies. We shall see that from the effects ob- 
served, combined with the law of optics, we may deduce the conclusion, 
that the direct shock of one of these bodies could not cause the penetration 
of the infinitely rarefied matter of which they are composed, even into our 
atmosphere. 

It is a well ascertained fact, that stars of the tenth and eleventh magni- 
tude, and even lower ones, have been seen through the central part of comets, 
without any sensible loss of brilliancy. Amongst the observers who have 
frequently proved this optical fact, we find the names of Herschel, Piazzi, 
Bessel and Struvé. In most instances, says Mr. Hind, there is not the least 
perceptible diminution in the brilliancy of the star. 

I shall take as an example the well known comet of Encke, which is 
sometimes visible to the naked eye, and generally presents a rounded mass. 
In 1828, it formed a regular globe of about 500,000 kilometres in diameter, 
with no distinct nucleus; and Struvé saw a star of the eleventh magnitude 
through its central part, without noticing a diminution of brilliancy. In an 
observation of M. Valz, on the other hand, a star of the seventh magnitude 
almost entirely effaced the brightness of a brilliant comet. Let us start from 
these observed facts. 

Since the interposition of a comet, illuminated by the sun, does net sensi- 
bly weaken the light of a star in front of which it forms a luminous current, 
it follows that the brilliancy of the comet is not a sixtieth part of that of the 
star, for otherwise the interposition of a light equal to a sixtieth part of that 
of the star, would have been sensible. We may, therefore, assume, that at 
the utmost the brilliancy of the comet equalled a sixtieth part of the light 
of the star. Thus, by this hypothes‘s, if the comet were rendered sixty 
times more luminous, it woald have a lustre equal to that of the star; and 
if it had been rendered sixty times sixty times, that is to say, 5600 times 
more luminous than it was, it would then have been sixty times more lumin- 
ous than the star, and in its turn would have made the latter disappear by 
the superiority of its lustre. 

The conclusion from this is, that it would have been necessary to illumine 
the cometary substance more than 38600 times more than it was illumined by 
the sun, to enable it to cause the disappearance of a star of the eleventh 
magnitude. 

We may assume that the light of the moon causes the disappearance of 
all the stars below the fourth magnitude; thus the atmosphere illumined by 
the full moon acquires sufficient luminosity to render stars of the fifth and 
all lower magnitudes invisible. Between the fifth and the eleventh magni- 
tudes there are six orders of magnitude, and according to the fractional 
relations of these different orders we may admit that a star which is a single 
degree of magnitude above another, is two and a half times more luminous 
than the latter. A star of the fifth magnitude is 250 times more brilliant 
than a star of the cleventh magnitude. Thus the illumination of the atmos- 
phere by the moon is much more intense than the illumination of the comet- 
ary substance by the sun itself, since it would be necessary to render tho 
comet 8600 times more luminous to enable it to extinguish a star of the 


GEOLOGY. 863 


eleventh magnitude, whilst the luminosity of the atmosphere illuminated 
only by the moon is sufficient to render invisible, stars which are 250 times 
more brilliant. 

The disproportion becomes still more striking when we consider, that ac- 
cording to the measurements of Wollaston, to which Sir John Herschel says 
he sees no objections to be made, the illumination of the full moon is a little 
less than the eight hundred thousandth part of the full illumination of the 
ae | 

To complete the data of our definite calculation, we shall call to mind, 
that, according to the density of the air in the lower strata of the atmos- 
phere and its total weight, as indicated by the barometric column, the whole 
stratum of air which constitutes the atmosphere is equivalent to a stratum of 
about cight kilometres in thickness, and possessing the density of the air at 
the surface of the earth. 

We have already found that it would be necessary to render the comet 
3600 times more luminous for it to extinguish the lustre of a star of the 
eleventh magnitude. To render a star of the fifth magnitude invisible it 
would require to be made 3600 + 250 times more brilliant than it is. In 
other words, if the atmospher2 were 3600 + 250 times less compact than it 
is, it would be equivalent to the comet. As 3600 + 250 make 900,000, the 
nine hundred thousandth part of the atmosphere would suffice to produce 
the same effect of illumination as the comet; but as the latter is in the full 
licht of the sun, while the atmosphere is only illuminated by the moon, 
when it extinguis hes stars of the fifth magnitude; this circumstance gives 
the atmos; 5! here a further advantage in the proportion of 800,000 to 1, which 
‘under ordinary circumstances gives the atmosphere a superiority oqtisl to 
900,000 + 800,000, or 720 billions. But this is not all; the thickness of the 
cometary substance being 500,000 kilometres, whilst that of the atmosphere 
is only eight kilometres ; we must increase the above relation in the propor- 
tion of 500,000 to 8, which brings it to forty-five millions of billions, thus — 
45,000,000,000,000,000. 

Thus, according to these data, the density of the substance of a comet 
could not be calculated at so high a quantity as that of the atmosphere, di- 
minished by the enormous divisor, forty-five millions of billions. The shock 
of a substance so rarefied would be nothing at all, and not the least particle 
of it cou!d penetrate even into the most rarefied parts of our atmosphere. 

According to experiments of my own, gases lose their property of elas- 
ticity long before they are reduced to such low density. I do not think that 
at the ordinary pressure a gas could completety fill a vessel with 20,000 times 
the original volume of the gas. The substance of comets is, therefore, a 
kind of very divided matter, with its molecules isolated and destitute of mu- 
tual elastic reaction. : 

It follows from the preceding that both the mass and the density of a 
comet are infinitely small, and without any hypothesis we may say that a 
sheet of common air of one millimeire in bier, if transported into the 
region of a comet, and illuminated by the sun, would be far more brilliant 
than the comet. 


364 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


The mass of the earth, according to the calculation of Baily, may be 
reckoned at 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilogrammes. 

The matter of comets being assimilated above the air, of which the den- 
sity would be 45,000,000,000,000,000 times less than that of the ordinary air, 
this would lead us to assimilate it to the substance of the earth diminished 
to about 194,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times less than its ordinary densi- 
ty. By this estimate, a comet as large as the earth would only weigh 30,000 
kilogrammes ; this makes thirty tons of 1000 kilogrammes, or the weight of 
thirty cubic metres of water. — Comptes Rendus, 1857. Feb. 

In a subsequent paper presented to the Academie in May, 1857, M. Babi- 
net enters into a calculation to ascertain the mass and density of the great 
comet of 1825, which did not diminish the light of a star of the fifth magni- 
tude seen through the centre of the comet, to the amount of one-fifth. His 
conclusion, founded on the diminution which light undergoes in passing 
through air of known rarety, is that the substance of the comet of 1825 pos- 
sessed a density, which compared with atmospheric air at the surface of the 
earth, must be indicated by a fraction, having unity of its numerator, and 
for its denominator a number superior to unity, followed by one hundred and 
twenty-five ciphers. 

When Herschel, in his last work on astronomy, spoke of a few ounces as 
the mass of the tail of a comet, he found nearly as many disbelievers as 
readers. Nevertheless, says M. Babinet, his calculation is exaggerated in 
comparison with the preceding determination. M. Babinet promises, in a 
future paper, to take up the very suggestive question, “How are comets 
visible ? ” 


CENTRAL RELATIONS OF THE SUN AND EARTH. 
BY C. F. WINSLOW, M. D. 


In analyzing a record of 850 earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, collected 
from all sources, the monthly tables read as follows: For 


PAST 3s Dh yaiclerel sterelay siete aeeters POO 1 a OCTO WET ae crele are chatcrerseetsletectieretmtoysiere 95 
MV ie ei ois eatela re Hives ae AP UW NOVEMDEES: sees beeen eee 95 
SD MAITG 5 crgfe\aistaie ale oabisehe Nie Sied Ad.) Decembery of. isan 102 
PL pea 8 sche a ates itspaye ars ep EB ieiiups Ae) AINULAY Yiu datos let oys ialoiairere reach alnotelats 94 
UATE eS ance a Ne Bee oe e ne (o Paelclobitch aan Hees On oa AOS ota eo 7 
DUCCHMUEE Ss sues acres oe seas 64 VEATCH pcleroy, eisisin, setae se ctieneiee 65 
824 526 


By a glance at the above summary, it will be seen that the greatest number 
of these events have occurred during the course of the planet through the 
perthelic sections of its orbit ; that they increase steadily till the earth reaches 
the perihelion ; and then diminish, until at aphelion they are fewest. In this 
respect these phenomena show a very steady and close inverse reference to 
the length and sweep of the radius vector; and from this point of view, 
holding unmistakable connection with well-known astronomical laws, they 
become special results of solar causes. How do these causes operate ? | 

One of the most remarkable facts in Robert Mallct’s Report of 1851, to 


GEOLOGY. 865 


the British Association, was, that more earthquakes occurred in our “ winter 
months’ than in the other months of the year. My facts accord with his in 
this particular. 

Von Tschudi ascertained, by his inquiries in Peru, that an excess of 
earthquakes occurred in that country in November, December and J anuary 
of each year. 

By the most careful and extensive search into the observations of natives 
and foreign residents, during a fortnight spent at Acapulco, in Mexico, in 
1853, I discovered that the same preponderance of earthquakes, both as to 
number and violence, prevailed there from October to February every 
year. 

Since that time I have found the same notable fact to exist at Hawaii, 
although perhaps less marked as a regular annual result, in consequence of 
the plutonic outlet of Kilauea being constantly open, and more or less active. 
Nevertheless, of eighty-nine earthquakes observed at Hilo in twenty-two and 
a half years, seventeen more occurred during the six perihelic months, than 
during the aphelic months. This is deduced from the record of Mrs. Ly- 
man, the missionary at Hilo, furnished to me by Rev. Titus Coan, of the 
same place. 

An intelligent observer, John W. Widdifield, of New York City, who re- 
sided at Petropaulaski, Kamtschatka, for one and a half years, informed me 
that it was a fact well known to the Russian residents, and that he had ob- 
served the same, that earthquakes, which are frequent there, occur in greater 
numbers in the winter than summer, and that a voleano in sight of his resi- 
dence was more active in the winter than summer. 

Mons. Victor Prevost resided for two years at the Isle of Bourbon, nearly 
the antipode of the last-named locality, about the same time that Mr. Wid- 
difield resided in Kamtschatka, and he became familiar with the phenomena 
of the famous volcano on that island. He stated to me, as the common ob- 
servation of the inhabitants, and of his own knowledge, that the crater is 
quiet for six months, and active for six months; and that every year the 
lava flows from it in December and January. 

It is also given as a well-observed fact that earthquakes are more frequent 
in Chili from October to March, than at the other period of the year. 

Dolamieu, Hamilton and Scrope long ago stated, on the authority of the 
inhabitants of the Lipari Isles, that the eruptions of Stromboli were far 
more violent during ‘‘ the winter seasons than in summer.” 

Here is a great array of authentic and suggestive facts which cannot be 
controverted, but which must increase every year, all tending to one point, 
and that is, that plutonic agitations of the globe hold a permanent inverse ratio to 
the length of the radius vector ; that is, the distance of the centre of the planet from 
the centre of the sun. 

All evidence tends to this conclusion, that the sun is the PRIME genetic 
agent of earthquakes and of every other pluto-dynamic impulse which acts 
against the crust of the planet, and breaks or elevates any of its parts. 

The question now arises as to the nature and operation of the soLaR 
GENETIC AGENCY, by which results so stupendous and regular, are produced 


oL* 


366 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY, 


from the centre of the planet outwardly in all radial directions, since it is so 
isolated in space and so remote from the central body of our system. 

Earthquakes, emissions of lava from orifices in the globe, and the forma- 
tion of islands and continents, are all minima or maxima sequences of one 
and the same sysTEM of cosmical dynamics. This consists in the elastic 
movements of plutonic matter —the repelling action of particles —from the 
centre of gravity in all directions upon the crust of the globe. These 
phenomena do not result from mere solar attraction as commonly under- 
stood and taught as operating on the nearest matter presented in the planet- 
ary mass, and thus drawing it away from that more remote, inasmuch as 
this operation would relieve the crust from the pressure of molten matter, 
or any other sort of matter beyond it, and prevent what Newton’s theory of 
tides, as taught, might at first thought make probable. They cannot either 
depend on the light or heat of the sun, because earthquakes occur with as 
great force and frequency in the night, when the ruptured point of the planet 
is most remote from the sun, as when it is under the sun’s meridian. Besides, 
it is well known that solar heat only penetrates the earth a few feet, and that 
it does not affect the bottoms of oceans at all, while earthquakes and vol- 
canic eruptions frequently take place in all oceans, and also in high northern 
and southern latitudes. 

All discussions of this subject tend to carry me further and further from 
the acceptance of any physical theory now received among philosophers. 

Gravitation itself does not indecd become a questionable fact in my con- 
siderations, but when applied alone to the inquiry into the nature of these 
phenomena it fails to explain them. They demonstrate the expression of a 
force whose dynamical sequences declare the reverse of gravitation, although 
the present relations of matter were primarily brought about by, and do in 
reality exist through the agency of this force. 

A careful review of the subject shows that, while solar attraction is in- 
versely as the square of the earth’s distance, and while the planet, through- 
out its mass and volume, moves in space as if it were a unit or mere point 
in obedience to this law, the individual particles of the planet are, in like man- 
ner and in reality, held to its centre by an attraction which follows the same law. 
This gravitation of individual particles, all aggregating in radial lines from 
the outmost bounds of the atmosphere to the centre of the sphere, constitutes 
the earth’s density. It then follows that the earth is subject to the same law 

which we know to reign over the density of comets and planets; that is, the 
nearer the sun the greater the intensity of attraction between its individual 
particles, and the stronger the attractions of these to the centre of gravity ; 
in other words, the greater its density, — not the greater attraction of one side 
away from the centre, and still more from its antipode, —but the greater the 
attraction in both these points at the same moment to the centre of gravity. 

Now, as the earth’s density depends on the gravitating power of its indi- 
vidual particles to its centre, which centralizing force varies inversely with the 
earth’s distance from the sun, or, in more exact words, is inversely as the 
square of the radius vector, we discover vast and unexplored fields of inquiry 
open to research respecting the daily changes and developments of force* 


GEOLOGY. 367 


among the particles of the sphere, the movements and directions of these 
currents of force, and the dynamical motions of molten matter from the cen- 
tre to the surface of the globe. 

This step in my researches connects astronomy with geology, discloses 
the cause of terrestrial magnetism, binding it with all minor experimental 
inquiries and with the observations and discussions of all facts collected 
throughout the surface of the planet, and even explains its connection with 
the Solar Spots, inasmuch as no agitation can take place in the sun without 
coincident changes in its molecular forces affecting its density, or the phy- 
sical relations of its particles, which changes are immediately felt in our 
own globe, through the connection of its centre with the forces of the solar centre. 
Thus too, this research brings us face to face with the prime cause of all 
physico-plutonic phenomena, not only that of earthquakes and volcanoes, 
but of those displays of dynamical power exhibited in the elevations of 
mountain ranges, and in the formation and revolutions of continents. Earth- 
quakes and plutonic eruptions, being events which maintain particular rela- 
tions to time, and being results of graduated operations of force on matter, 
become objects of new and intense interest. 

Their explanation becomes indeed simple when we recognize the fact that 
all great dynamical disturbances are only effects of the accumulated forces 
of particles. The individual properties and principles of molecules, inertia, at- 
traction and repulsion, being recognized, it is safe to follow both matter and 
force wherever their combinations and expressions may lead us. Conse- 
quently, as the atlractive forces accompany atoms into their cosmical combi- 
nations and constitute the great centralizing force of gravitation, so the repul- 
sive forces must follow the same atoms (for they cannot be lost) and constitute 
another active power within the globes throughout space, — a power whose dy- 
namical energies within our own planet as elsewhere, have hitherto been wholly 
ignored. The alternating exertions of these two forces have been plainly 
enough exhibited in the motions of the matter constituting the translucent 
spheres of comets, in their regular contraction and expansion, as they ap- 
proach and pass away from the sun. The fact, as a mere statement, is 
noted by all telescopists ; but its physical importance has been overlooked, 
and no explanation of the phenomenon has ever been attempted. Inertia, 
a given impulse, and gravitation may be sufficient in the formule of ma- 
thematicians to account for the motions of the heavenly bodies. That point 
is not here called in question ; but the force of gravitation alone is not suf- 
ficient to account for phenomena which are of daily occurrence within the 
Loundaries of the spheres that compose this solar system. 

Following the two forces of attraction and repulsion with metaphysical 
pertinacity into the material constitution of cosmical bodies, we discover the 
same law to prevail in nature which is exhibited in all our experiments 
with matter. 

Disturb the equilibrium of molecular status in any form of matter by im- 
pact, pressure, or by any motion, and the repulsive force is instantly awak- 
ened, however long it may have remained dormant. Thus originates a 
palpable material tension, — the representative of molecular repulsion, which 


368 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 

in its most magnified expression, represents within the boundaries of a sphere, 
& FORCE the REVERSE of gravitation. Immediately following the change of 
relations between these two fundamental forces there spring up new forms 
of force, as electricity, light, heat, and magnetism with their opposites. All 
are generated from the same sources. Each may become insensibly con- 
verted into the other, and all vanish back again into the original essential 
propertics of molecules from which they sprang. All the conditions of 
these dual principles obey in exact ratios, the laws which govern their fun- 
damental molecular congeners: and their amounts correspond with the 
degree of motion, condensation and vibration between atoms, and are de- 
veloped on a scale as vast as the volume or capacity of the body submitted 
to external action, and corresponding internal and central excitation. The 
density of the earth at its aphelion is such that constant tension exists, yet, 
both density and tension become greater when the planet is nearest to the 
sun. Thus, notwithstanding a steady repulsive energy or molecular tension 
is exerted during all time, from’ the centre of the earth, in all radial direc- 
tions upon its crust, (as a sequence of solar force,) so that fractures of its crust 
producing earthquakes or molten eruptions, would inevitably often occur 
when the globe is in aphelion; still as the intensities of force between the 
atoms change by fixed central laws, with every point of time during which a 
sphere moves in space, the representative power of molecular repulsion in- 
ereases from the centre to the surface in direct proportion to the planct’s 
density, and attains its maximum as an earthquake and plutonic force when this 
density is the greatest. This state of things takes place at perihelion. 

A word of illustration may render the above statements more lucid. A 
mass of matter, free at the surface of the globe from palpable tension, if car- 
ried toward its centre, would have its particles excited or impelled into closer 
juxtaposition, during which condition repulsive energy, as above defined, 
would increase in proportion to its density. Similar developments of dy- 
namic energy would accompany this translation of matter from the surface 
toward the centre, as are sensibly displayed by a solid ball of India rubber 
when compressed. Indeed the same physical results would follow ; for even 
India rubber or any other substance subjected to fluctuating impact, or vibra- 
tory disturbance of its molecular forces, generates heat, magnetism, elec- 
tricity or light. These two forces developed and fluctuating in intensity in ra- 
dial lines, from centre to surface, become planctary fountains of power produc- 
ing not only dynamic disturbances, as earthquakes, volcanoes, elevations of 
land and swellings of the seas, but those imponderable principles of heat, 
magnetism, and electricity whose currents freely pass within and without 
the globe. From the preceding points of view, it will be seen that the solar 
forces acting upon the planet in an inverse ratio of the square of the radius 
vector, are not mere incidental and wasting elements, but absolute creative 
effluences which enter into the mundane centre and become a sort of physical 
animus to the sphere, producing the cohesion of every atom with every other 
atom, transfusing into each and all, their very laws and ratios of power ; 
and, by regulating their individual intensities of attraction and repulsion, 
modify the density of the globe, and become transformed in its bowels into 


GEOLOGY. 869 


heat, in the solid crust into magnetism, in the ocean and air into electricity 
and light, each new expression of force being but the equivalent of the other, 
and all in turn contributing to the genesis and continuance of organic -forns 
which again returning to the earth, yield up their forces to enter into the 
constitution of senseless shapes through unending cycles. In this inquiry 
the imperceptible effluences of the solar centre assume visible functions, 
and an importance in terrestrial changes and in organic creations, which 
have never heretofore been detected. 

Thus the discovery that all plutonic phenomena spring from the fluctuat- 
ing play of central forces between the sun and earth, which as molecular 
aggregates correspond in their mutual relations with known fundamental 
atomic laws, and which also as cosmical and dynamic functions bear con- 
stant inverse ratios to the length of the radius vector, connects the first 
great physical truth discovered by Copernicus, with that sublime conception 
recently announced by Faraday, respecting the probable identity and con- 
servation of all force. 

In this sketch ail astronomical discussions are omitted. But that the same 
facts occur in the sun itself, there can be no doubt, inasmuch as the agitations 
of its envelops show the same distributions and transitions of the molecular 
forces, observable on the earth; and the volcanoes of the moon, and the 
inequalities of the other planets show a fluctuating play of the same forces to 
have taken place within them, acting from their centres outwardly. Neither 
haye the tides of the ocean been here referred to, which on my demonstra- 
tions prove to be results of reacting or repulsive forces, —the contrary 
of Newton’s Theory, — inasmuch as the swellings of the sea do not corres- 
pond with the moon’s vertical position as they should if resulting from 
direct attraction; but follow a long time after, when the central attractive 
force has gradually subsided, allowing a reaction of the repulsive force to 
ensue, as the earth rotates beyond the lunar meridian. As the centralizing 
force of spheric gravity is excited into greater intensity when under the suri’s 
and moon’s meridians, and acts most intensely in radial lines—i. e. in 
great circles tangent to polar circles, — through corresponding meridianal as- 
pects of the earth, it follows that similar effects would be produced in op- 
posite hemispheres, and that they would be most feeble in that most remote 
from the sun and moon. And this we observe to be the case in the action 
of the tides, and in the action of the magnetic force, this last being only an 
index of molecular motions taking place within the globe in the same man- 
ner as the tides act without. Besides, Alexis Perry of Dijon, by great 
labor, has shown singular correspondences between the age of the moon and 
many earthquakes, a general fact very probably correct, while my theory re- 
ferring the primal source of all dynamic forces within both plancts and satel- 
lites to the sun, will explain all anomalies, and bring all cosmic phenomena, 
both near and remote, within the range of more accurate inquiry and more 
certain solution. 

To make my conclusions more clearly understood, I will sum them up 
in a few simple propositions ; namely, that an isolated particle of matter at 
rest, is endowed with two embryonic inactive and insensible essences, which 


370 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


exist in equilibrio, as if one force alone existed, or rather no force at all; 
that on the approach of another particle, these essential principles’ become 
excited, and develop active forces of attraction and repulsion: that these two 
forces co-exist with particles everywhere ; that readily coalescing (like drops 
of quicksilver, for instance) as particles approximate, these forces become, 
at last, cosmical units having a power or potential magnitude proportional 
to the mass of the sphere; that these forces become centralized cosmical 
powers (absolute living mechanical forces in the universe) which, as spheric 
properties, produce cohesion and density, the intensity of which varies from 
the centre of a planet to its surface, in ratios directly corresponding with the 
force of solar attraction on the whole mass: that the earth, moving in an ellip- 
tical orbit with the sun in one of its foci, is undergoing variations of inten- 
sity in its spheric forces with every instant of time and point of space; that 
these forces BROUGHT BY THE SUN into intense activity at the earth’s 
aphelion, through the condensation of terrestrial matter there, are never at 
rest; but holding unequal relations to each other, compel, at each rotation 
and revolution, perpetual changes of radial action and reaction among ail 
particles which end in producing ihe physical phenomena so observable, and 
hitherto so mysterious, on the surface of our globe. 


OUTLINE OF A THEORY ON THE STRUCTURE AND MAGNETIC PHE- 
NOMENA OF THE GLOBE 


Mr. J. Drummond, in a communication read before the British Associa- 
tion, at its last meeting at Dublin, from the admitted fact of our earth 
having cooled down from an original state of fluidity, and that it now is a 
solid crust inclosing a fluid mass of molten materials, held that there must 
be an action of the sun and moon on this fluid mass analogous to that which 
caused the tides of the ocean; that from thence an outward pressure on the 
crust must result, propagated along it, in a manner similar to the great tidal 
wave; and from this principle, in an elaborate essay, he deduced the ordin- 
ary magnetic phenomena, as well as volcanoes, earthquakes, and other vio- 
lent actions; concluding by answering objections which may be urged 
against the foundation and details of this theory. 

Readers who are familiar with the views expressed by Dr. Winslow, in his 
paper, read before the American Association in 1856, and subsequently re- 
fused publication in the proceedings of that body, will observe a striking 
coincidence in the views entertained by Mr. Drummond and Dr. Winslow. 


FURTHER INFORMATION CONCERNING THE NATIVE IRON OF 
LIBERIA. 


Ata late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes read a letter from Mr. A. P. Davis, of Buchanan, Liberia, giving 
some further particulars in relation to the discovery of Native Iron in 
Africa. 

Mr. Davis, from whom the specimen analyzed by Dr. Hayes was received, 
in the present letter described the mass found as “being as large as the crown 


GEOLOGY. 371 


of a man’s hat, and like a rock of a yellow color taken from the earth.” — 
“From its appearance, I supposed it would break into pieces ; but it resisted 
the repeated blows of a sledge hammer of fifteen pounds weight, and I could 
not separate it by breaking, as the hardest blows only flattened it.” — “It 
was by these means we found out it was malleable.” — ‘‘ The huge bulk was 
put in the fire and blown to, until it became sufficiently hot to be cut.” — 
“Tt was divided into many parts, and some of the same bulk was actually 
ore, not malleable at all.” 

“Tt has a very craggy appearance, with many cells in it.” 

“ Where the ore is to be had, or the distance that the ore in question came 
from, is about four to six days’ travel.’’ — “I have none now, but will, with 
Divine help, get some as soon as possible.” 


EARTHQUAKES AT SEA. 


A recent meeting of the French Academy, reports from two masters of 
merchantmen were read, stating that on the 30th of December, 1856, the 
vessel of one was rudely shaken as by a shock of earthquake, in 10° south 
latitude and 21° 35’ west longitude, and that of the other when under the 
equator, at 20° west longitude. The first vessel experienced several other 
shocks, though slighter, accompanied by a rumbling noise until four o’clock 
in the afternoon ; the second only experienced one shock. The weather was 
perfectly calm at the time, the sea tranquil, and the temperature remained 
unchanged. After the reports had been repeated, M. Elie Beaumont, the 
geologist, remarked that it had long been supposed, from preceding observa- 
tions, that a volcano existed in the Atlantic, at about the latitude and longi- 
tude mentioned, and that it was no doubt an explosion of it which had 
caused the sea-captains to imagine there had been an earthquake. 


VOLCANOES IN CENTRAL ASIA. 


A late number of the Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin con- 
tains an article by M. Semenoff, a Russian traveller, concerning a volcano 
discovered by him in Mantchoo Tartary. It has been generally observed 
that volcanoes, both in the old world and the new, are situated near the 
coasts; from which it has been inferred that the proximity of the sea exer- 
cises material influence on their eruptions. Chinese records, indeed, mention 
the large inland mountain chain of Thian-Shan as possessing volcanoes, but 
the only part of this chain hitherto ascertained as such is the Bo-Shan, the 
last eruption of which occurred in the seventh century. M. Semenoff throws 
a new light on the subject by producing evidence of the existence of a vol- 
cano in the district of Ujun-Holdongi, in Mantchoo Tartary, fifteen versts 
(nine and a half miles) north of the village of Tomolshin-on-the-Nemer, and 
twenty-five versts from the town of Mergen. In January, 1721, an eruption 
occurred there immediately after an carthquake, lasted nine months, and 
formed a crater eight hundred feet in height, the lava extending over a sur- 
face comprised within a radius of forty versts. In May, 1722, a new erup- 
tion occurred at a distance of thirty versts north-east of the former, and 


ore ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


lasted a month, leaving a crater one hundred and fifty feet in height. This 
is the first account we have of these eruptions, and as these two volcanoes 
are situated at a distance of one thousand versts from the sea, and one thou- 
sand two hundred versts from the lake of Baikal, it follows that the proxim- 
ity of the sea is no essential condition for the existence or formation of 
volcanoes. 


ON THE EXTINCT VOLCANOES OF VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA. 


At arecent meeting of the London Geological Society, Mr. R. Brough 
presented a paper on the above subject. 

The district in Southern Australia in which lavas, basalts, and other evi- 
dences of recent igneous action are found, extends from the River Plenty on 
the cast, to Mount Gambier on the west. Its extreme length, is 250 miles, 
and its extreme breadth about ninety miles. In some districts the scorisz 
have been found by well-sinkers to overlie, at the depth of sixty-three feet, 
the original surface of the ground, covered with coarse grass, such as that 
now found growing; and among this dry, but not scorched grass, the work- 
men are said to have found some living frogs. Over nearly the whole extent 
of Victoria there are masses of intrusive basalt, in some places columnar, 
breaking through both the granite and the palzeozoic strata, and occasionally 
through the overlying tertiary (miocene) beds also. Extensive denudation 
has destroyed the probable overlying portions of these old basaltic out- 
bursts, both before and after the tertiary period. A newer period of eruptive 
trap-rocks, sometimes as dense and hard as the older basalts, but more fre- 
quently vesicular and amygdaloidal, pierce the older tertiary, and also the 
post-tertiary beds, or the latter quartzose and auriferous drifts. These newer 
basalts and lavas were probably erupted at a period when considerable areas, 
both north and south of the main coast-range, was submerged, and the lavas 
cooled rapidly, and not under very great pressure. ‘These eruptions do not 
appear to have disturbed the tertiary beds, which are usually found nearly 
horizontal. After these newer basaltic lavas were erupted and denuded, 
and after the deposition of the overlying pleistocene drift, some of the vol- 
canoes were still active (though not so energetic as previously), emitting 
porous lavas and pumice; and at a still later period volcanic ash and scorie, 
such as that which rests on the ancient humus. 

Mr. R. B. Smyth pointed out the interest attached to the extinct vol- 
canoes of Victoria, as connected with the great volcanic chain extending 
from the Aleutian Islands to New Zealand; and concluded with some ob- 
servations on the recent occurrence of earthquake movements in Southern 
Australia, and on the evident uprise of the coast-line, as having reference to 
the probably not yet exhausted force of the volcanic foci of that region. 


ON THE INDENTIFICATION OF THE COAL MEASURES OF PENNSYL- 
VANIA AND THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 

At the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Promotion 

of Science, Mr. Leslie stated that, during the past year, Mr. Lesquereux 


GEOLOGY. 373 


had succeeded in identifying the coal-beds of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and 

hio. Thus the Pomeroy coal at the mouth of the Great Kanawha is iden- 
tified with the Gate vein at Pottsville, on the Schuylkill, and the highest 
coal bed in Western Kentucky, with the great Pittsburgh bed of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The old views, as to the thickness of anthracite coal-series, and the impov- 
erishment of the Western bituminous series, have been incorrect. The 
number of beds in a given vertical space is no greater in the east than in the 
west; the intervals are substantially the same; but a more valuable fact is, 
that the relative values of the beds, among themselves, is maintained. 


ON THE SO-CALLED NEW RED SANDSTONES OF THE ATLANTIC 
STATES. 

Highly important additions to our knowledge of the geological character 
and position of the so-called New Red Sandstones of the Connecticut valley, 
and of New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina, have been recently made 
through the investigations of Dr. E. Emmons, the State Geologist of North 
Carolina. ‘This information is contained in Dr. Emmons’s preliminary re- 
ports to the Legislature of North Carolina, and in Part IV. of American 
Geology by the same author. 

The range of sandstones in question is well known to extend from the 
north part of Massachusetts, on Connecticut River, southward to Long 
Island Sound ; to begin again on the southern part of the Hudson and con- 
tinue into New Jersey, and, pursuing a course west of south, to appear in 
the States of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Caroiina, even into the 
bounds of South Carolina, though with interruptions. At the north this 
series was formerly called the New Red Sandstone, supposed to be, geolog- 
ically, next above the Coal Formation, and part of the Triassic. On the 
Continent of Europe, the Trias is divided into three parts, the upper called 
the Keuper, the middle the Muschelkalk, and the lower the Bunter Sand- 
stein. The Muschelkalk is wanting in England and in our country; the 
other two are admitted in the geology of England, and Dr. Emmons main- 
tains the existence of both in North Carolina and at the north, as the Upper 
and the Lower Sandstones, separated by their peculiar conglomerates and a 
partial unconformability. If this is sustained, the Richmond coal-field, and 
also that of North Carolina, must be placed, not in the Lias, or Oolite series, 
but entirely below both. In the former relation, Prof. W. B. Rogers placed 
the coal and sandstone in view of all the evidence attained in 1843. This 
view Sir Charles Lyell considered to be confirmed by his own subsequent 
special examination, as he states in his Elementary Geology, sixth edition, 
p- 330. 

The researches and discoveries of Dr. Emmons have, however, changed 
the character and value of the evidence previously collected on this subject. 
In Virginia, there are two tracts of these sandstones and shales, of which the 
eastern, on James River, has long supplied bituminous coal. 

There are also two tracts of these rocks in North Carolina, in both of 
which are coal; in the northern basin, upon Dan river, semi-bituminous 


32 


374 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


coal, and in the southern, on Deep river, bituminous. In this more eastern 
and central range, the sandstone and shales extend from Granviile County, 
near Virginia, southeast 120 miles, across the state, to Anson County, 
and into South Carolina. Near the centre of this series, in Chatham County, 
is a “plant bed,” below which Dr. Emmons found the remains of a large 
Saurian, named by Leidy, Dictyocephalus elegans, one of the Labyrintho- 
donts. 

In the Chatham series Dr. E. makes known two Saurians, of the Theco- 
dont division, or whose teeth are set in distinct sockcts. One of these he 
considers to be the Clepsisaurus of Lea, because its vertebra have the hour- 
glass form, and which is named C. Leai, by our author. The other, Theco- 
dont, Dr. Emmons has named Rutiodon Carolinensis; Rutiodon meaning 
wrinkle-tooth, a fine character on the teeth for the genus, while the specific 
name commemorates the state of its location. Of this animal Dr. E. figures 
a “lower jaw, seven inches long, with sixteen alveoles,” (sockets ). 

Dr. Emmons has also discovered, in the Chatham series, teeth of the 
Palzosaurus, thus making three distinct genera, and at least four, if not five, 
species belonging to this (Thecodont) section of Lacertilia, in the Chatham 
rocks. With these also occur, abundantly, coprolites of Saurians. 

These discoveries seem to fix the position of the North Carolina Sand- 
stones, as belonging to the Permian group, or else the Bunter Sandstone, 
as the saurians discovered by Emmons are characteristic of these formations 
in Europe. Another discovery, however, by Dr. Emmons, seems to offer 
some objections to this classification. It is that of a Mammal, belonging to 
the Placental Insectivora, of which three jaws have been found. One of 
these jaws, figured by Dr. E. in his report, is ‘‘ nine-tenths of an inch long, 
and contains seven molars, three premolars, one canine, and three incisors,” 
or fourteen teeth in one side of the lower jaw. 

These remains Lelong, undoubtedly, to the oidest fossil mammal hitherto 
discovered, which has received the name of Dromatherium (running wild 
beast) sylvestre. They occur associated with the Thecodont Sau:ians, before 
mentioned, and somewhat resemble the remains discovered in the Stones- 
field slates of England. 

Professor O. Heer, of the Federal Polytechnic School, Zurich, who is dis- 
tinguished for his knowledge of fossil plants and insects, has recently exam- 
ined, with great care, the various fossils discovered by Dr. Emmons in the 
sandstones of North Carolina, and others from Virginia, and as the result 
of such examination, he maintains that as yet not a sing!le species of plants 
of the Jurassic series, has been discovered in the Richmond or North Caro- 
lina sandstones, but that there are several identical with those of the Keuper 
in the vicinity of Stuttgart, hence the upper sandstones are equivalent to the 
Keuper, as Dr. Emmons maintains, and the lower are Permian, or, at least, 
no newer than the Bunter sandstones (lower Trias). It is also stated that 
Mr. Lycil, after a full examination of the specimens in the hands of Professor 
Herr, has arrived at the same conclusions. 

In relation to the above discoveries, the substance of which has appeared 
in Silliman’s Journal, Professor Dana makes the following remarks : —In 


GEOLOGY. 373 


the determination of the exact age of this sandstone, the only rock in this 
country east of the Mississippi, occurring between the Carboniferous and the 
Cretaceous, we cannot be too cautious in the use of evidence. One or two 
considerations are, therefore, here suggested. In the first place, the Fauna 
and Flora of America, of this modern epoch, is represented in Europe, and 
quite strikingly, as has been shown by the Fauna and Flora of the later 
tertiary of Europe. The life of corresponding ages in the two continents has 
thus been older in America than in Europe. This is one point to be well 
weighed. Again, in determining the age of a rock from its fossils, we should 
rather look to those which indicate the more recent period, than those which 
bear the other way. This criterion would bring us right with regard to our 
own epoch, while, by avoiding it, we might be able to prove that we in 
America are of the Tertiary age of the world. Now, as Mr. Redfield has 
shown, the fossil fishes, — the most characteristic species of any formation, — 
are but ha/f heterocercal and come nearer to the Jurassic type than the Tri- 
assic. There is hence reason for the opinion, notwithstanding the important 
evidence brought forward by Dr. Emmons, that the Lias period may be 
represented by the formation ; and we may be nearest the truth if we regard 
the whole formation as corresponding to the Lias and the latter half of the 
Trias. The examinations by Mr. Heer accord with this conclusion. The 
European subdivisions of the Trias we should not look for on this continent, 
even if we had the whole of the formation, any more than the European 
subdivisions of the Devonian in the American Devonian. American geology 
is deeply interested in the decision of this question, and owes much to Pro- 
fessor Emmons for all that he has done towards its elucidation. 


FOSSILS OF THE CONNECTICUT RIVER SANDSTONES. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, President 
Hitchcock exhibited specimens of impressions, which he supposed to be those 
of a Myriapod, found at Turner’s Falls on Connecticut River. 

He also presented specimens of depressions found in the same series of 
rocks, of regular polygonal forms, generally from five to eight sided, shal- 
low and about an inch in diameter. Similar depressions have been found 
in the Niagara limestone of New York, of two or three feet in diameter. 
These last have been referred to the action of tadpoles, and President Hitch- 
cock was also inclined to refer the specimens from Connecticut River to the 
same cause. 

Mr. H. further stated that he was now doubtful if the tracks which he had 
supposed to have been made by birds, in the Connecticut Valley sandstone, 
were really produced by birds, since one great argument, namely, that of the 
number of phalanges in the toe, is lost. Tracks of an animal which was cer- 
tainly a quadruped, are now found, presenting the same number of phalanges 
and toes as the dinornis. 

At the Montreal meeting of the American Association, Dr. Hitchcock 
also read a paper on the age of the Connecticut River sandstones, and de- 
duced the following conclusions : 

1. There is a belt of sandstone lying in Massachusetts, immediately above 


376 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the trap, which is the equivalent of the oolitic or jurassic series of Europe, 
especially the lias. 

2. This belt of sandstone is the equivalent of the lower jurassic sandstone 
of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, containing very valuable beds of 
bituminous coal. 

3. Hence, workable beds of coal may yet be found in the Valley of the 
Connecticut. 

4. The strata of this sandstone below the jurassic belt are thick enough 
to embrace the Triassic and Permean groups, and perhaps even more. 

5. The upper part of this sandstone formation, the coarse conglomerates 
of Metawampe, may be found to have a place in the rock series higher than 
the jurassic. 


INTERESTING DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes communicated a letter from Dr. C. F. Winslow, containing an ac- 
count of the discovery of a fragment of a human cranium, one hundred and 
eighty feet below the surface of Table Mountain, California. The letter, 
which was accompanied by a portion of the bone in question, says : 

“ My friend, Col. Hubbs, whose gold claims in the mountains seem to 
have given him much knowledge of this singular locality, writes that the 
fragment was brought up in “ pay dirt”’ (the miners’ name for the placer 
gold drift) of the Columbia claim, and that the various strata passed through 
in sinking the shaft consist of volcanic formations entirely. Whether his 
knowledge is accurate touching the volcanic formations, I have some doubt, 
and have written for more certain information. 

“The mastodon’s bones being found in the same deposits points very 
clearly to the probubility of the appearance of the human race, on the west- 
ern portions of North America at least, before the extinction of those huge 
creatures. As I have fragments of Mastodon and Elephas primigenius, or 
a kindred species, taken between ten and twenty feet below the surface, among 
the upper placer gold deposits of the same vicinity, it would seem that man 
was probably contemporary, for a certain period, with the closing dynasties 
of these formidable races of quadrupeds. This discovery of human and 
mastodon remans in the same locality, gives also great strength to the possi- 
ble truth of an old Indian tradition of the contemporary existence of the 
mammoth and aboriginals in this region of the globe.” 


NEW FOSSIL OPHIDIAN. 


At a recent meeting of the London Geological Society, Professor Owen 
called attention to the remains of a fossil ophidian, obtained near the Bay of 
Salonica, Greece, from beds of fresh water tertiary. The vertebrae were 
thirteen in number, indicating by their size a serpent of between ten and 
twelve feet in length. 


Supposing them to have been derived from other parts than the anterior 


GEOLOGY. 377 


fourth part of the trunk, they resemble in the length of the hypapophysis 
the vertebrae of Crotalus, Vipera and Natriz ; which they also resemble in 
the presence of a process developed from both the upper and lower part of 
the diapophysis. The results of a minute comparison of all the parts of the 
complex vertebrx of ophidian reptiles were given, which rendered it proba- 
ble that the Salonica fossil serpent resernbled those genera in which the hy- 
p2pophysis is well deve‘oped from all the trunk vertebre ; the breadth of 
the base of the neural arch indicates that they have been from about the 
middle of the trunk. They offer so many points of resemblance with those 
of the raitlesnake and viper, that they may have belonged to a venomous 
species, but they are specifically distinct from those existing serpents; they 
differ generically and in a very marked degree from the vertebrz of the great 
constricting serpents (Python and Boa), as well as from the large fossil ser- 
pent (Paleophis) of the Eocene Tertiary formations. A summary of the 
known existing serpents of Southern Europe and Asia Minor was given, 
showing that none of the living species equal in bulk the fossil serpent. “A 
classical myth embalmed in the verse of Virgil, and embodied in the marble 
of the Laocoon, would indicate a familiarity in the minds of the ancient 
colonists of Greece with the idea at least of large serpents. But according 
to actual knowledge, and the positive records of zoology, the serpent be- 
tween ten and twelve fect in length, from the tertiary strata of Salonica 
must be deemed an extinct species.” or this fossil Professor Owen pro- 
posed the name of Laophis crotaloides. 


NEW FOSSILS FROM THE POTSDAM SANDSTONE. 


Hitherto the Potsdam Sandstone of New York, the lowest rock of the 
Silurian, has been known to afford no fossils but one or two species of the 
genus Lingula. Through the researches of Mr. F. H. Bradley, of New 
Haven, a species of Trilobite (genus Calymene) has been discovered, and 
also one of Pleurotomaria, besides an impression of a crinoidal disc. The 
Pleurotomaria is only a cast. The Trilobite, although a small one, its 
breadth but one eighth of an inch, is well preserved. The buckler and 
caudal extremity have not been found together, but the markings of each 
are very distinct. — Proceedings Montreal Meeting American Association. 


FALL OF A LARGE MASS OF METEORIC IRON IN SOUTH AMERICA. 


Mr. R. P. Grey communicates to the Philosophical Magazine the follow- 
ing account of the fall of a large mass of meteoric iron at Corrientes, 
in South America, as given in a letter, by an observer of the phenomenon, a 
Mr. H. E. Symonds. He says: In 1844, I accompanied the Corrientine 
army in its invasion of the province of Entre Rios. One morning in 
January, when encamped on the river Mocorita, near the Corrientine fron- 
tier, we were all awaked from a profound sleep, and every man of the army 
of 1400 sprang on his feet at the same moment. <An aérolite was falling. 
The light that accompanied it was intense beyond description. It fell in an 


o2* 


378 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


oblique direction, probably at an angle of about 60° with the earth, and its 
course was from east to west. 

Its appearance was that of an oblongated sphere of fire, and its track from 
the sky was marked by a fiery streak, gradually fading in proportion to the 
distance from the mass, but as intensely luminous as itself in its immediate 
vicinity. The noise that accompanied it, though unlike thunder, or anything 
else that I have heard, was unbroken, exceedingly loud and terrific. Its fall 
was accompanied by a most sensible movement of the atmosphere, which I 
thought at first repellent from the falling body, and afterwards it became 
something of a short whirlwind. At the same time I and my companions 
all agreed that we had experienced a violent electric shock; but probably 
this sensation may have been but the effect on our drowsy senses of the in- 
describably intense light and noise. The spot where it fell was about one 
hundred yards from the extreme right of our division, and perhaps four 
hundred from the place where I had been sleeping. Accompanied by our 
general (Dr. Joaquin Madauaga), I went within. ten or twelve yards from it, 
which was as near as its heat allowed us to approach. 

The mass appeared to be considerably imbedded in the earth, which was 
so heated that it was quite bubbling around it. Its size above the earth was 
perhaps a cubic yard, and its shape was somewhat spherical; it was in- 
tensely ignited and radiantly light, and in this state it continued until early 
dawn, when the enemy forced us to abandon it to continue our march. I 
may mention, that, at the time of its fall, the sky above us was beautifully 
clear, and the stars were perhaps more than usually bright; there had been 
sheet lightning the previous evening. 

I never afterwards had an opportunity of revisiting the Mocorita, for our 
permanent encampment was thirty-five leagues to the north of that pass, 
between which and our encampment the country was entirely depopulated 
by our long war; but as the spot where the aérolite fell was known to many 
of our subaltern officers, who were frequently sent to observe the frontier of 
Entre Rios, I have heard them describe it as a “ piedra de fiérro; that is, a 
stone of iron; and I once provided one of the most intelligent of them with 
a hammer in order that he might bring me a sample of it. On his return he 
told me it was so excessively hard that the hammer bent, and was broken in 
unsuccessful attempts to break off a small piece of it. 


MINERAL PRODUCTS OF GREAT BRITAIN FOR 1856. 


From the reports of the keeper of the mining records of Great Britain, 
published August, 1857, we derive the following correct data respecting the 
mineral productions of Great Britain for the year 1856: 

The value of the mineral produce of the United Kingdom in 1856, at the 
mine, colliery, or quarry, before any charges for carriage were made, or cost 
added in any way for manufacture, was upwards of thirty millions and a 
half sterling, as follows : 


rm erent A 0S) or a ae ee ee . £668,850 
Donen Ore Rs I RR PV POLS . -2,848,960 


GEOLOGY. 379 


Lead and SE 6. BEST. keels a el vee Obvleludaw veuimaiigaellpae es aan 


Rt ONE odes Jain ake Gad alga dd <TD Fie ges Saas 5 27,455 
DO a sai sncniine nM nas and cacbins SPusined spa doles aaah Be Sree 46,066 
Lore a ae dics apa leh inks’ iki oh bic. g nie aha cain, ed le 5,695,815 
PMERETEG eretalcfaselsle/s  tisiei0's.* aisle ais! jae sistas ostler ss: arst vise a athe anvel etal enenetetete 1,911 
Wiekel and Oram, 505s cece cece eee Rana at atte toa nthe Mee erare 527 
RAMEN Sse ose eae aaa SA bi casi eae gE aon «atenie taeda 16,663,862 
en aaah sia Sicice ai itinrateDaraish nna af aare au aye «iutey Shor orga oiendopuig?hia im, raiolace ole .» 553,993 
REE CER a coc ints8 Sino 5 eins ol 6,5 ins cna kd agin ni a a eae he 10,000 
Sa RAEN RG a orale nse eins 06s ch, 44%. atom nics Sia ata ca ete ned gg ere 120,896 
PRET A SUOMCS yo cidence sc cceccedssceus cous eeter suet fer ape 3,042,478 

£30 ,602,322 


Of all these substances, says the report, the quantities obtained in 1856 
are larger than those of the preceding years, but of coals the increase is 
something extraordinary. The money value of coals is now more than half 
that of all the other mineral substances put together, and the increase in 
quantity is upwards of two million tons. The coal produce of last year as 
compared with the two preceding years, is as follows: 


ht ae Fa is eae LAE OS NEN Ves . «64,661,401 
BR SND sacs ea ean ee 64,453,070 
Pe re ee en ain See ae 66,645,450 


Of this increase of the raismg of coal nearly one half has been wanted for 
export, while the remainder has been called for by the enormous increase of 
our iron manufactures and railways. Nearly one-fourth of the whole amount 
of coal raisec in the United Kingdom is the produce of the mines of Dur- 
ham and Northumberland. Those two counties are being undermined at 
the rate of fifteen millions of tons per annum, and yet, say geologists, we 
have no need to fear a supply of coal falling short for some hundreds of 
years. 


DEEP SEA-SOUNDINGS. 


In connection with the sufveys instituted in behalf of the trans-Atlantic 
telegraph, some highly-important explorations, by means of deep sea-sound- 
ings, have been made during the past year by Capt. Berryman, U. S. N., 
of the surveying steamer Arctic. 

Soundings were made and submarine temperatures observed at depths 
varying from eight hundred fathoms to three miles. Compared with these 
results, the observations of others in comparatively shoal water, are of minor 
interest. In every instance specimens of the bottom were obtained, gene- 
rally of what appeared a dark blue mud, but which, when examined with a 
powerful glass, exhibited the same curious microscopic revelations observed 
in the specimens from the telegraphic plateau. But the most curious points 
were the temperatures of the bottom of the ocean. So imperfect is the 
apparatus for registering these submarine temperatures, that contradictions 
will arise, but a constant repetition of experiments has proved that at a 
depth of three-fourths of a mile and over, there exists a degree of cold un- 
known on the surface. 


380 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: 


At times the Saxon thermometers registered a temperature below zero. 
On one occasion, attaching two to the same sounding, they registered at a 
depth of a thousand fathoms ten and eleven’and one quarter degrees respect- 
ively. On the next trial, at a depth of 1076 fathoms, both registered ten 
degrees. In 1296 fathoms water,the two thermometers in use indicated, the 
one ten, the other eight degrees, while in nearly every case where a com- 
parison could be made between the registration of two or more, a greater 
difference than ten degrees was very rare. 

Some of the depths obtained were enormous — the greatest reliable depths 
ever obtained. In every instance ample specimens of the bottom were 
brought up, and the depths as recorded by the little sounding apparatus and 
the amount of line expended were in very exact agreement. 


FOSSILS FROM THE CRIMEA. 


The temporary occupation of the Crimea during the war led to some in- 
teresting geological discoveries. Specimens of fossils from the various 
strata were sent to England, and with these, including some formerly sent 
from St. Petersburg, seventy-four specimens have been added to the pub- 
lished list of fossils from that country. These fossils, with one exception, 
belong to the invertebrata. The geological formations show the probability 
that, at one time, the Caspian and Aral, with the Black Sea, formed a vast 
inland sea, now separated by the gradual filling up of the communication 
between them. The existence of coal deposits had been rumored, but these 
proved to be lignite of ordinary quality. 


NEW FOSSIL BIRD. 


Ata recent meeting of the French Academy M. St. Hilaire announced 
that a fossil bone of a bird had been lately discovered at Armagnac, depart- 
ment of the Gers, in France. The bone was described as a humerus of the 
right side, and as one-third longer than that of the common albatross, which 
is the longest of those of living birds; but between it and the humerus of 
the albatross there are various differences. M. St. Hilaire stated that he 
had come to the conclusion that it belongs to a peculiar and distinct branch 
of the palmipeds, to which he proposed the name of Pelagornis miocenus, in 
order “to recall the presumed habits of this great bird, and the geological 
period in which it lived.” 


BA tA Ny, 


NEW FACTS IN ARBORICULTURE. 


Two branches of a tree may not unfrequently be observed to produce a 
perfect bifurcation; that is, they separate from acommon point. Further 
examination will show that such branches take their departure from one and 
the same bud. In rarer instances, five or six branches may be observed to 
all start from a common centre, and with a regularity that surprises, when 
contrasted with the arrangement of the rest of the tree. These effects are 
now and then produced by germing, or inoculating, and not seldom by the 
unassisted handiwork of nature. When the latter is the case, the bifurea- 
tion is caused by the bite of a caterpillar, or some other voracious insect, 
which has but to gnaw the point of a bud to make it grow double, 
triple, quadruple, and so on—to transform itself indeed into numerous 
buds, thereafter distinct and separate, each passing singly through all the 
phases of its vegetation. 

What is here said applies to buds that produce wood; it is equally true 
of those that produce fruit. The insect plies its mandibles, and quite un- 
consciously starts a new order of developments. After all, however, a little 
reflection would lead us to believe that buds might be as fecund as seeds. 
If one grain of wheat produces many grains, why not one bud many buds, 
if we can only get it into the right condition? What this condition is, we 
learn from the insect. 

At all events, it has been learned by M. Millot-Brulé of France, and 
turned to good account, for he produces effects at. pleasure, without waiting 
for the accident of an insect; with the point of a penknife, or a slip of sand- 
paper, he makes buds produce as many branches as he chooses. The 
notion occurred to him in 1849; and he at once made experiments which 
were successful: and repeating these year by year, he has now produced a 
new and singularly interesting process of arboriculture. A commission ap- 
pointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Public Works to examine into it, 
reported in the following terms of what they had seen in M. Millot-Brulé’s 
gardens: “ Several peach-stems present a multiude of branches proceeding 
from the same centre with mathematical regularity and symmetry. By 
skilful disbudding by incisions, and nipping of the buds or shoots, he 
arranges the trees in a way at once the most picturesque and fantastic. 
Under his fingers, the obedient branches assume the most varied and elegant 


382 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


forms: he increases the fructification, and develops the formation of buds 
according to his wish.” 

Thoroughly to illustrate the results, diagrams would be necessary ; we 
shall, however, endeavor to explain as clearly as the subject will admit of. 
M. Millot-Brulé’s elementary figure consists of a straight branch which from 
one common tentre separates into fifteen branches, resembling, in fact, a 
small tree with a reeularly-formed head. A second represents an espalier 
peach tree, the branches of which radiate in the form of a wheel, each branch 
terminating in an oval ring of smaller branches, developed at regular inter- 
vals. From these simple forms, others of a more complex nature may be 
produced ; a single stem, properly managed, will form a square, a parallelo- 
gram, of a series of circles, so elegant in design, that if copied in papier 
maché they would be prized as graceful ornaments for the drawing-room. 
The buds may be multiplied, and the branches sent off entirely at the pleasure 
of the cultivator; hence there is no limit to the forms which may be pro- 
duced. 

In the course of his experiments, M. Millot-Brulé discovered another of 
the interesting secrets of arboriculture, namely, that little branches must not 
be developed immediately opposite each other on a horizontal branch trained 
against a wall or on stakes; and the reason is, that the branches which run 
upwards take up all the sap at the expense of those running downwards ; 
the latter consequently languish. It therefore becomes absolutely necessary 
to develop the small branches alternately —each lower one between two 
upper ones — on all horizontal branches. It is possible, moreover, to assist 
the lower branches by bending the upper ones upon themselves, making 
them form a sort of knot, but always with the precaution of leaving the 
extreme points in an upward direction. 

Any intelligent person may, by a little dexterity, become a practised 
arboriculturist. The process in its simplest form appears to be to decapitate 
the buds with a penknife as soon as the sap begins to circulate in the spring. 
In a few days, two new buds appear at the base of the bud thus operated on, 
and the vegetation of these is easily equalized by expert trimming, or pinch- 
ing off when necessary. The equilibrium once established, these two buds 
may be similarly treated, and as each will produce two more, any number 
of branches may be obtained, and a thick full head developed on the top of 
a single stem. * To make branches shoot in different directions, the terminal 
bud of the main branch is pinched at one side or the other, according as the 
direction required is to the right or left ; and the new buds being pinched in 
turn, perfect control is established over each branch from its very earliest 
growth. We pretend not to enter into the minute details that would be 
requisite in a horticultural publication: all we propose is to convey some 
general notion of what strikes us as a remarkable discovery. 

Wires are used when necessary to maintain the branches in a proper 
position ; and from this point we are led to a consideration of practical use 
and value. This method of multiplying branches being introduced into 
nurseries, the trees grown will be more fruitful and less irregular in form 
than heretofore. Who would not rather see a shapely tree than a straggler! 


BOTANY. 383 


It will enable landscape-gardeners to make single trees or groups as orna- 
mental as they please. Parks may thus become more beautiful than ever, 
and public walks, boulevards, and the like, may be decorated according to 
taste or fancy. There are many persons who will, perhaps, say that trees 
are most beautiful when left entirely to nature ; but they forget that nature 
sometimes produces vegetable as well as animal deformities, and that it must 
therefore be an advantage to be able to encourage gracefulness. 

But M. Millot-Brulé’s method admits of an immediate and eminently use- 
ful application — namely, that of controlling the form of branches in planta- 
tions grown for their timber. In agricultural implements, in ship-building, 
fancy cabinet-making and carpentry, as well as in other employments that 
will suggest themselves to the mind, angular, forked, and bent timber is an 
article of prime necessity. What an advantage is gained to the grower 
when, using his judgment, aided by his penknife and a slip of sand-paper, 
he can make the trees under his care obedient to his will. 


ON THE COLORING OF THE SKIN OF FRUITS. 


The following article, by M. Flotow, is translated from the French “ Jour- 
nal de la Societe Imperiale of Centrale d’ Horticulture.” 

“ Duhamel, in his Treatise on Fruit Trees, says, that te encourage the color- 
ing of kernel fruits, it is merely necessary, when they have attained their full 
size, to remove the leaves which shade them, first from one side, then from 
the other, and finally all round. He adds, that their coloring may be ren- 
dered more brilliant by marking the side next the sun with a hair pencil 
dipped in cold water. This passage applies more especially to pears. It 
suggested to M. de Flotow experiments, the results of which he has given 
in a lengthened article on kernel fruits in general. He selected some favor- 
ably situated fruit of the Napoléon, Beurré d’ Hiver, B. Dicl, Merveille de 
Charneaux, and more particularly of the Poire longue blanche de Dechant, 
on which he had never observed at the time of ripening the least degree of 
redness, whilst the other varieties had several times exhibited a little red ap- 
proaching to yellow or brown. He moistened these in the morning, and 
repeated the operation several times during the day, when the sun shone 
upon them ; and he continued this treatment as long as the weather permitted. 
The result of this experiment has justified the assertion of Duhamel. All 
the fruits thus moistened were remarkable among others of the same variety 
and on the same tree, by a more brilliant red. The Poire de Dechant, in 
particular, exhibited a decided red tint, while the fruit usually presents no 
such appearance. 

“M. de Flotow had remarked, but without being able to account for the 
fact, that in apples and pears which were striped on both sides, the rays or 
stripes were longitudinal, that is, from the eye to the stalk, but never trans- 
versely, although he says that in several works on pomology, fruits are 
figured with the stripes in the latter direction. The results of the experi- 
ments have led to the conclusion that the action of the sun’s rays upon t 
skin of fruits wetted or moistened by dew, is the cause to which the produc- 


384 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tion of these red bands is to be assigned. If, says he, fruits wetted by dew 
are observed whilst the rays of the rising sun strike upon them, it will be 
seen that the moisture collected in drops on the edge of the cavity in which 
the stalk is inserted, and on the sides, forming lines of moisture, of greater 
or less length, according to the size of the drops, and according as the sun 
evaporates them with greater or less rapidity. It will be understood that 
there must be great differences in the streaking, according as the dews are 
more or less frequent, according as they are light or heavy, and according to 
the power of the sun’s rays and the fineness of the skin. It is likewise prob- 
able that the difference between the day and night temperatures has some 
effect in this respect; and streaked fruits are generally autumn or winter 
varieties. Pears are seldom streaked, or, at least, not distinctly so. 

To throw some light upon the coloring of fruits, M. de Flotow has tried 
the action of acids and alkalies upon the skin. The following are briefly 
the principal results of his experiments: Strips of skin, removed from the 
fruit and cleaned, became intensely red when treated with diluted sulphuric 
acid; at the same time they yielded a red juice. The color only became 
brighter and more beautiful when treated with diluted hydrochloric acid. 
Ammonia restored the original color. Other pieces of skin having been, in 
the first place, treated with ammonia became brown, and their color dark- 
ened to such a degree that they appeared black ; on the application of diluted 
sulphuric acid their natural color was speedily restored. ‘The Pomme douce 
d’ Amerique, which is streaked with bright red and pale yellow, underwent 
no particular change when treated with sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, 
the red lines only becoming a little more conspicuous ; and with ammonia 
they became of a blackish-brown color. . 

Whilst leaving to botanists and chemists the explanation of these facts 
and several others contained in his memoir, M. de Flotow believes, however, 
that he can conclude from them that the matter which reddens the skin of 
fruits is totally different from the green matter which is also found there ; 
and that it likewise extends to the flesh immediately under the skin 


VITALITY OF SEEDS 


The report of the standing committee of the British Association, on this 
subject, was read at the Dublin meeting by Dr. Daubeny. 

They state that after planting, year after year, all the seeds they were able 
to collect, they had now left, but four species of plants whose seeds continued 
to grow. These were seeds belonging to the species Ulex, Dolichos, Malva, 
and Ipomea. The results are curious and interesting. We now give them 
for the information of our readers, and for reference. The register of every 
experiment was exhibited with the details kept by Mr. Baxter of the Botanic 
Garden. From this register it was seen that the shortest period for which 
any of the seeds had retained their vitality was eight years, and the longest 
forty-three years. Grouping the plants according to their natural orders, the 
following, selected, will give some idea of the plants whose seeds retain 
their vitality longest ; Graminez, eight years ; Liliaces, ten years ; Conifere, 


BOTANY. 385 


twelve years ; Tiliacese, twenty-seven years ; Malvacez, twenty-seven years ; 
Leguminos, forty-three years; Rhamnacezx, twenty-one years; Boragnia- 
cee, eight years ; Convolvulacex, fourteen years; Composite, cight years ; 
Myrtacez, eighteen years ; Umbelliferx, cight years ; Crucifere, eight years. 
It would appear that the seeds which retained their vitality longest were 
those which had least albumen surrounding their embryos, as the Legumino- 
sz; while those which had large quantities of albumen, as the Graminacez, 
lost their vitality soonest. Dr. Steel stated that he had planted many seeds 
obtained from Egyptian mummies, but always failed to obtain any indications 
of their vitality. Mr. Moore, of the Dublin Botanic Garden, related an 
instance in which he had succeeded in producing a new species of leguminous 
plant from seeds obtained by Mr. John Ball from a vase discovered in an 
Egyptian tomb. He also stated that he had picked from out of the wood of 
a decayed elm, at least fifty years old, seeds of laburnum, many of which 
had germinated when planted, and produced young trees. He had once 
grown a crop of young barberry trees, by planting a quantity of barberry 
jam, which proved that the process of preparing the jam did not injure the 
seed. Many seeds grew the better for being placed in boiling water before 
they were set. Dr. Daubeny stated that seeds did not retain their vitality 
whilst entirely excluded from the air; that, in order to keep them well, they 
should be wrapped up in brown paper, or some other porous material. Mr. 
Archer stated that the seeds sent from China in air-tight vessels always 
failed to germinate. Some seeds kept much better than others. Mr. Ogilby 
stated that some seeds germinated the better for being kept. Mr. Nevins 
and Mr. Moore both confirmed this statement, and said that gardeners were 
in the habit of keeping cucumber and melon seeds in their pockets, in order 
to insure their more efficient germination. 


MAMMOTH TREES OF CALIFORNIA 


During the past year two new localities of the mammoth trees of Califor- 
nia seguoia gigantea, have been discovered in Maraposa County, those 
formerly known and described being situated in Calaveras County. 

The valley in which one group of these trees occurs is nearly half way 
between the town of Mariposa and the falls of the Yosamite. Here, accord- 
in to the editor of the California Farmer, more than 150 trees are growing, 
no one of which measures less than fifty feet in circumference. One tree 
measured 102 feet in circumference, at the ground, and ninety feet at a point 
three feet and a half above the ground. Its height was upwards of 300 
feet. The circumference and height of a large number of other trees, grow- 
ing contiguous, were also found to be but little inferior to the one specified. 


33 


ZO, OL, OG V.. 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF ART UPON ORGANIC STRUCTURE. 


Prof. George Wilson of Edinburgh, in a recent article, thus notices the ex- 
tent to which living organisms are influenced by art, and rendered machines 
and apparatus, which can be weilded to a certain degree at will. 

A cattle dealer will give you one calf, which shall certainly, in course of 
time, prove a bountiful yielder of milk and cream ; another, which shail as 
certainly be a fatted ox when three years old ; a third, which shail by and by 
be a match for a horse at the plough. The Yorkshire broadcloth makers 
choose by preference the long-stapled wool of sheep fed plentifully upon 
artificial grasses, turnips, and the like. The Welsh blanket makers, on the 
other hand, prefer the shorter wool of sheep cropping the natural grass of 
the hills ; whilst the Scotch tartan-shawl weavers work only with Australian 
or Saxon wools. In like manner, the comb-makers will tell you that the 
farmers are injuring them, by multiplying breeds of cattle which quickly 
fatten, and are, in consequence, killed before their horns are well grown; 
and those same industrialists will curiously distinguish between the tortoise- 
shell from one region of the sea and that from another. I should never end, 
were I to pursue this matter. 


THE MICROSCOPIC COLLECTION OF THE LATE PROFESSOR BAILEY. 


The Microscopic collection of the late Prof. Bailey, of West Point, was by 
the will of its owner, bequeathed to the Boston Society of Natural History. 
This collection, embracing specimens, mounted and prepared for preserva- 
tion and examination, books, drawings and rough material, is far superior 
to any similar collection in this country, and is probably not surpassed by 
any in Europe. As the object of Prof. Bailey in bequeathing this valuable 
collection to the Boston Society, was, that it might be made most available 
to the general interests of science, we think we shall do good service by 
enumerating somewhat in detail the materials which hereafter can be made 
available for consultation by all microscopic investigators. 

he Microscopic Collection, which comprises the most valuable portion 
of the specimens mounted for the microscope, is contained in twenty-four 
boxes in the shape of octavo volumes. 

Five ef the boxes contain specimens of Diatoms, etc., from the Atlantic 


ZOOLOGY. 387 


Soundings, including two boxes from Lieut. Berryman’s Soundings between 
America and Ireland, in 1856. 

Three boxes contain specimens from Soundings in the Arctic and Pacific 
Oceans, Gulf of Mexico, and Para River, etc, in South America. 

In four boxes are American and Foreign Diatoms; Diatoms in Guano; 
and Fossil Polycistins and Diatoms from Barbadoes. 

In three boxes are Fossil Diatoms from Virginia and Maryland; Ber- 
muda, Monterey, California, Suissun Bay, etc. 

Nearly all the specimens in the above boxes were mounted by Professor 
Bailey ; and they are accompanied by manuscript catalogues, or by memo- 
randa‘on slips of paper, in which the positions of more than three thousand 
individual objects on the slides are noted with reference to Bailey’s Univer- 
sal Indicator for Microscopes; thus enabling the actual specimens described 
by him to be readily found and identified at any future time. A part of the 
collection is also accompanied by an alphabctic catalogue of species, with 
reference to the slides on which specimens may be found. 

Two boxes contain recent and fossil Vegetable Tissues ; and two others 
Test Cbjects and miscellaneous organic bodies, and a micrometer scale on a 
glass slide. 

The number of glass slides in these twenty-one boxes is five hundred and 
fifty. 

In addition to the selected specimens in the Microscopic Collection, there 
are more than eight hundred specimens mounted on glass slides, comprising 
many duplicates of those in the collection, and a variety of miscellaneous 
microscopic objects. 

There are also two hundred specimens of Polythalamia mounted as 
opaque objects and labelled. These are not duplicates of the Polythalamia in 
the Microscopic Collection, which are in Canada balsam. 

A very valuable portion of the bequest consists of the original specimens 
of microscopic material, collected by various scientific and exploring ex- 
peditions, and an extensive series of specimens received from European 
correspondents, including Ehrenberg and other distinguished microscopists. 

The Alge are contained in thirty-two portfolios. They are from almost 
every part of the globe. They are arranged and named in a manner to 
afford great assistance to the student, who may be interested in the study of 
marine botany. In most instances, specimens of the same kind, but collected 
at different seasons of the year, or brought from different localities, and pre- 
senting different appearances to the naked eye, are placed side by side upon 
the same sheet, or within the same envelop, so that the work of comparing 
one specimen with another, and of ascertaining the names of doubtful ones, 
which the student may possess, is rendered easy. The whole number of 
specimens in this department of the collection is about four thousand five 
hundred. Of this number nearly one half belong to the family Floridx, and 
comprise about two hundred varieties. 

The collection also includes sixty-nine specimens of animal tissues, of ver- 
tebrata, articulata mollusca and radiata. 

The whole number of books belonging to the collection is eighty-four, 


388 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


besides one hundred and fifty unbound volumes and pamphlets, and these 
latter are not the least valuable portion of the library, consisting as they do 
of important monographs, a form in which much that has been done in 
Algology and Microscepy is as yet only to be found. Among the works 
are the splendid Microgeologie of Ehrenberg, the works of Kiitzing, Queck- 
ett, Ralfs, Hassall, Smith, Agardh, Harvey, Lindley, and Hutton. Indeed, 
nearly everything of importance relating to microscopic science is here. In 
addition to the books, there are nearly three thousand sketches or drawings 
of microseopical objects, all carefully arranged and catalogued. 


PRODUCTION OF SEXES AT WILL. 


Many curious investigations have been instigated in regard to this point 
in the world of nature. It is a matter of familiar knowledge that the male 
and female characteristics of the higher species of the animal creation, are 
not produced in the same individual as they are in the great majority of the 
higher species of plants. The organs, as will be seen, from which the two 
are evolved, are, however, so nearly related to each other in intimate nature, 
that the one may be readily mistaken for the other in the earliest period of 
their formation. Physiologists now incline to the opinion that the fertilizing 
vesicle is merely a germ vesicle, in a somewhat more exalted state of devel- 
opment. Mr. Knight has shown that plants, like the oak, that bear the male 
and female flowers on separate individuals, may be made to produce either 
at will, by regulating the supply of light and heat according to the end in 
view. If the heat be excessive as compared with the light, male flowers 
only appear ; but if the light be in excess, female flowers are produced. He 
also found that whenever the eggs of birds are not allowed to be fertilized 
until immediately before they are laid, and therefore their own intrinsic de- 
velopment has been carried to the highest possible pitch before renewed vivi- 
fication of the germ vesicle is effected, as many as six out of every seven 
of the birds subsequently hatched proved to be males. * * * Quetelet 
believes that the relative ages of the male and female parent, influence the 
sex of the offspring produced, to a very considerable extent. In support of 
this theory M. Hofacker has shown that when the father is considerably 
younger than the mother, the proportion of female to male children is gener- 
ally as ten to nine; but that when, on the contrary, the father is nine years 
older than the mother, the proportion of male offspring to female is as five 
to four, and when eighteen years older, as two to one. In a general way, 
more males of the human species are born into the world than females. If 
all Europe be included in the estimate, the proportion of male to female births 
is about 106 to 109. Possibly, if Quetelet’s views be based on truth, this 
preponderance on the side of males may be due to the fact that in civilized 
communities men, from prudential and other motives, mostly marry women 
younger than themselves. But there are other reasons why this preponder- 


ance exists. Three male children are born dead to every two female. — 
Gardner on Sterility. 


ZOOLOGY. 389 


ON THE HABITS OF FISHES. 


Ata recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Capt. A. 
E. Atwood, of Provincetown, Mass., an old and experienced professional 
fisherman, and also a distinguished investigator in science, submitted to the 
Society some interesting facts respecting fishes and their habits, the result 
of his personal observations. 

Iie first remarked upon the senses of taste, smell, sight, and touch. It 
has been said by eminent ichthyologists that taste and smell are very imper- 
fectly deveioped in fishes ; but this is not the fact. Many fish are very par- 
ticular in the choice of food; others, such as the mackerel and blue-fish, and 
mid-water and tep-water fish generally, seem to be governed by sight in their 
selection of food. He had often scen mackerel, when they were abundant 
around a vessel, take all the bait that was thrown overboard, but at the same 
time carefully avoid the baited hook. He had also noticed that tobacco 
thrown overboard was seized by mackerel but immediately rejected, showing 
as he thought a sense of taste. It is to be presumed, however, that taste 
must be imperfectly developed in animals which have a tongue more or less 
cartilaginous, and covered with recurved teeth; being obliged unceasingly 
to open and close the jaws for the purpose of respiration, they cannot 
long retain food in the mouth, but are obliged to swallow it without masti- 
cation. 

The sense of smell seems to be well developed in some fishes. For in- 
stance, the ground swimmers generally have a choice as to their food. Hali- 
but and cod are attracted a great distance with certain kinds of bait. Her- 
ring, when fresh and in good condition, will be very readily taken by cod, 
but when it has become stale from long keeping, it will be rejected. Crus- 
taceans, also, as lobsters and crabs, are attracted by certain bait, which leaves 
no doubt that they likewise possess some sense of smell. Although the cod 
seems to swailow almost anything that comes in his way, even stones, wood, 
and fragments of nearly everything thrown overboard, Mr. Atwood had 
never seen an univalve mollusk in its stomach. The bivalve shell is found, 
and the bank clam is very common in the stomach, the shells being placed 
within each other in the most compact manner, when there are several of 
them in that organ. 

In some other ground swimmers, both bivalve and univalve mollusks are 
found. ‘The haddock, ling, catfish, and one species of flounder are great 
shell-eaters, and very frequently undescribed species of mollusca are taken 
in their stomachs. 

The cod lives mostly upon live fish. It is very greedy, and even when 
distended with food, it will bite briskly at the hook. It is frequently taken 
with a full grown mackerel partly in its stomach and partly in its mouth, 
with the tail still projecting. At other times, when the alimentary sack is 
empty, it appears to have no desire to partake of food. When kept alive in 
the holds of vessels, no other nourishment is given the cod than the minute 
animalcules contained in the water. A very curious fact Mr. Atwood stated 
that he had observed, —the cod often swallows alive the tant or sand-eel 


33* 


390 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and the pipe-fish, both having heads very much elongated anteriorly and 
pointed. These fish sometimes pierce the stomach of the cod and escape 
into the abdominal cavity, and there they are found in a perfect state of 
preservation, adherent to its walls, but changed in color toa dark red, and in 
substance so hard that they are not readily divided with a knife. They have 
to be cut away before the cod can be split open. The fish is always in good 
health, apparently, and there are no marks of inflammation about the stomach 
or abdominal cavity, unless the material of attachment be considered as such. 

Fish migrate considerable distances in quest of prey, sometimes totally 
deserting localities where they have been very abundant. There is a species 
of crustacean called commonly by fishermen the sea-flea, which infests spots 
upon the Grand Banks, hundreds of square miles in extent, and which drives 
before it the cod and other fish. During his last voyage to the Banks, Cap- 
tain Atwood tried to fish with clam bait, which, however, came up untouched ; 
he then put on menhaden for bait and lowered to the bottom, bat upon rais- 
ing the hook nothing was found but the skeleton of the fish, the soft parts 
having been consumed by the sea-fiea. 


ARTIFICIALLY REARED FISH. 


At a recent agricultural and industrial exhibition, in Paris, about three 
thousand fish were exhibited from the Artificial Piscicultural Establishment 
formed at Thuringen by the French government. They consisted of salmon, 
from the Danube, trout, from the lakes of Switzerland, and grayling from the 
Lake of Constance. The last named were products of eggs hatched during 
the spring of 1857. There were also salmon of three years, some of which 
measured nineteen inches long by thirteen inches in circumference. These 
fish were conveyed in cylindrical reservoirs made of tin, the water being 
renewed frequently. 

It is tolerably well ascertained that the growth of artificially-reared fish, 
particularly salmon, is less rapid than under ordinary circumstances. Left 
to nature, the salmon will grow to about twenty-five pounds in three years ; 
reared and fed at the piscicultural establishment at Thuringen, he will not, 
in the same time, have reached a weight of five pounds. 

From information gained at the salmon-breeding establishment, in Scot- 
land, it also appears probable that there is a very singular retardation in the 
development, and that the young of salmon, under certain circumstances, 
continue to hold their generic character for an-indefinite period, instead of 
assuming their last metamorphosis. The question, then, may be asked : Is 
it then a law that of the ova of a single incubation a certain number become 
fully developed aficr a residence in the fresh water of afew weeks —a cer- 
tain number at the end of a year—and a still greater number never, but, 
retaining their generic dress, continue in this dwarfish state in the fresh-water 
rivers 4 

INTERESTING PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES. 


The following is an abstract of a communication recently made to the 
Boston Society of Natural History, by Mr. Brown Séquard. 


ZOOLOGY. es 391 


Experiments have lately been made to determine if the introduction of air 
into the chest, through the respiratory passages, with great force, does not 
have some influence upon the action of the heart ; and it has been found that 
there is a diminution in the frequency of the heart’s action, sometimes to 
such an extent, that the pulsations amount to only two-thirds the normal 
number. 

The explanation which has been given to this phenomenon is based upon 
mechanical grounds, but M. Séquard thinks, if this explanation be correct, 
it is so only to a certain extent. One other cause at least, that of a nervous 
influence, he has demonstrated to exist. 

It is well known that some mammals resist asphyxia for a long time, 
making efforts to breathe, often for several hours when the entrance to the 
lungs is closed. Now it is found that when the chest of an animal in this 
condition is opened and retained in such a position that there can be no 
motion and no mechanical action, the diminution of the pulsations persists. 
The phenomenon is then due to the action of the par vagum nerve. It is 
found that when this nerve is irritated at its root or galvanized, the action of 
the heart is arrested ; in this respect differing from the other muscular organs, 
which are excited to action by irritation or galvanization of their nerves. 
When the chest is opened, without injury to the par vagum, there is seen to 
be a control over the action of the heart during inspiration. But if the-par 
vagum of both sides of the chest be cut across, this control is lost. There is 
good ground for belief, therefore, that at every effort of inspiration, there is 
a transmission of nervous influence along the par vagum to the heart, acting 
as a check upon it and regulating its action, and thus preventing the increase 
of pulsation, which might otherwise go on, in increased ratio to infinity, 
under the excitement of forced respiration. 

It has been said that people have killed themselves by stopping the heart’s 
action. One of the brothers Webber, of Leipsic, found that when an effort 
was made to contract the chest during a full inspiration, that there was great 
suffering, fainting, and almost death. Webber himself nearly lost his life 
trying the experiment. By irritating the various organs which receive 
branches from the par vagum, as the stomach, spleen, etc., by galvanizing 
them or crushing them at once by a blow of a hammer upon an iron surface, 
it is found that the heart’s action is diminished in frequency, and in some 
instances entirely suspended. Cases of sudden death trom a blow upon the 
stomach, externally, are to be attributed to the same cause. The action upon 
the heart from overloading the stomach, either with too much solid or liquid 
matter, is to be explained also by the influence of the par vagum upon the 
heart. 

Dr. Séquard also referred briefly to his researches upon the Supra-renal 
Capsules. These two small organs, lying in immediate connection with the 
kidneys, have been considered very unimportant until within a few years. 
Now it is found, that when they are removed from the body of a living ani- 
mal, there occurs a very great change in the blood, and the animal dies in a 
short time, — sooner even than after the removal of the kidneys. There is 


392 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


found also to be an accumulation of pigment and a peculiar form of crystals 
(not having the chemical reactions of hzmatoidine), in the blood. 

In answer to an inguiry, if the real use of these capsules was known, M. 
Séquard replied that his hypothesis was that the function of the supra-renal 
capsules was to prevent the formation of pigment in the blood, and he thinks he 
has isolated a substance from the blood, which would be changed into piz- 
ment without the agency of these organs. This substance, perhaps, may be 
introduced in such a quantity that the capsules cannot destroy it, even when 
they are in a healthy state. In the discase described, a short time since, by 
Dr, Addison of London, and known as bronzed-skin disease, the coloring 
matter of the skin, examined under the micrescope, proved to be the same as 
that of the negro’s skin. And, as in the blood of the same disease, pigment- 
cells, pigment-granules contained in a transparent substance different from 
fibrine, and peculiar crystals of an unknown substajce, just referred to, are 
found, he thought there was some ground for the hypothesis that these organs 
“are pigment-destroying agents. He had seen the crystalline plates suffi- 
ciently large to become impacted in the capillaries and prevent circulation 
of the blood, and consequently he believed if they were not the prime cause 
of many disturbances of the nervous influence, they should at least be con- 
sidered a partial cause. He had likewise observed an absence of blood-dises 
in the vena cava, which would imply a great alteration of the blood. 


ON THE EXISTENCE OF AIR IN THE BONES OF BIRDS. 


At a recent meeting of the Zoological Society, London, Dr. Crisp read a 
paper ‘“ On the Presence or Absence of Air in the Bones of Birds,” for the 
purpose of showing the prevailing error upon the subject —namely, “that 
the bones of a bird are filled with air.” Of fifty-two British birds recently 
dissected by him, only one, the sparrow-hawk (/’. nesus), had the bones 
generally perforated for the admission of air. In thirteen others, the humeri 
only were hollow, and among these were several birds of short flight. In the 
remaining thirty-eight neither humeri nor femora contained air, although in 
this list were several birds of passage and of rapid flight. 


RESPIRATION THE CAUSE OF CIRCULATION. 


The above is the title of a theory recently proposed by Mrs. Emma Wil- 
lard, the well known authoress, of Troy, N. Y., to account for the circula- 
tion of the blood, in opposition to the theory of Harvey, which maintains 
that the impulsive stroke of the heart’s beat is the sole motive power. Ac- 
cording to the views of Mrs. W. the cause of the circulation is to be found 
in respiration, that function bringing into the lungs, on the one hand, carbon 
mingled in the venous blood, as the fuel of the animal fire, — and on the 
other, oxygen, derived from the atmosphere, to consume it; these being in 
the lungs separated by a membrane, permeable by gases, though not by un- 
decomposed fluid or air. Thus the carbon and the oxygen intermingling in 
the lungs, animal combustion ensues, apd heat evolved ; this passes into the 


ZOOLOGY. 393 


blood, which is about seven-eighths water. The lungs being in partial 
vacuo, and having a temperature at least thirty-five degrees above that re- 
quired in a complete vacuum to change water into yapor, a portion of the 
water contained in the blood becomes steam. The volume of the blood thus 
enlarged exerts a specific force. The valves on the right side of the heart 
close against it, while those on the left open, to give it free passage. Thus, 
according to this theory, is generated the primum mobile—the true motive 
power, which first produces, and afterwards keeps up the circulation of the 
blood. In the mean time the mechanism of the heart not only determines 
by its valves the course of the blood current, but equalizes its flow, and adds, 
by the mechanical force of its stroke, to the chemical power. But without 
this power, however free the heart may be to act, as in drowning, hanging, 
etc., life can be but a few moments sustained. 

This theory has received the support and sanction of some of the leading 
men in the medical profession of this country, and as such is worthy of 
a place in any record of the progress of science. 


ACTION OF LIGHT ON MUSCULAR FIBRES. 


At a meeting of the English Royal Society, during the past year, M. 
Brown Séquard presented a communication on the action of light on mus- 
cular fibres, independent of the influence of the nerves. That light is capa- 
ble of producing such an effect, was mentioned by several of the old anato- 
mists, but later authorities repudiated the idea, and the subject remained un- 
noticed. The experiments, however, of M. Séquard, prove that some portions 
of muscular fibre —the iris of the eye for example — are affected by light, 
independently of any reflex action of the nerves, thereby confirming former 
experiences. The cffect is produced by the illuminating rays only —the 
chemical and heat-rays remain neutral. And not least remarkable is the 
fact, that the iris of an eel showed itself susceptible of the excitement six- 
teen days after the eyes were removed from the creature’s head. So far as 
is yet known, this muscle is the only one on which light thus takes effect ; 
and henceforth, the statement that “muscular fibre may be stimulated with- 
out the intervention of nerves,” will have to be received among the truths of 
physiology. 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 


NEW PLANETS DISCOVERED IN 1857. 


Tue number of planetary bedies belonging to the solar system was in- 
creased during the year 1857, by the discovery of eight new asteroids. The 
forty-third asteroidal planet was discovered April 15, 1857, by Mr. Pogson, 
of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, England. It appears as a star of the 
ninth magnitude, and has received the name Ariadne. 

The forty-fourth was discovered by M. Goldschmidt of Paris, May 27. 
It appears as a star of the tenth or eleventh magnitude, and has received 
the name Nysa. 

The forty-fifth was also discovered by M. Goldschmidt on the 28th of 
June, and has been called Lugenia. 

The forty-sixth was discovered by Mr. Pogson of Oxford, England, on 
the 16th of August, and has received the name of Pales. 

The forty-seventh was discovered by M. Luther, of the Observatory of 
Bilk, on the 15th of September, and has received the name of [estia. 

he forty-eighth and forty-ninth asteroids were discovered by M. Gold- 
schmidt on the same evening, September 19th. The forty-eighth resembles a 
star of the eleventh magnitude, and the forty-ninth changes in brightness 
from the tenth to the eleventh magnitude. It has been suggested in the 
French Academy that these two asteroids should be termed the twins, and 
that to distinguish them, one should be named No. | and the other No. 2. 

The fifticth asteroid was discovered by Mr. Fergurson of the Observatory 
of Washington, on the evening of the 4th of October, and has received the 
name Virginia. 


ON THE RINGS OF SATURN. 


The theory of the gradual approximation of the rings towards Saturn, as 
advanced by several astronomical authorities, has been recently investigated 
by the Rev. Mr. Main of England, and Professors Kaiser and Secchi. Mr. 
Main, after submitting a series of observations of the rings to a searching 
investigation, came to the conclusion that there exist no real grounds for 
the hypothesis that the bright rings are gradually approaching the body of 
the planet. A similar result was deduced by Professor Kaiser. Professor 
Secchi’s observations would scem to indicate that the rings, besides having 
a rotatory motion around the planet, are also elliptical. 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 395 


BRORSEN’S COMET. 


A comet discovered by Bruhn’s of Berlin during the past year, has ac- 
quired an unusual interest, from the fact that its identity with a comet dis- 
covered by Brorsen of Kiel, has been satisfactorily proved, and its time of 
rotation about the sun determined. This amounts toa period of 2,026 days, 
(five years six and a half months) and the greatest axis of the line of rotation 
is about 600,000,000 miles long. — This is the third comet of short rotation 
known to us, the two others being those of Biela and Encke. 


ON THE POSSIBLE EXISTENCE OF A LUNAR ATMOSPHERE. 


The occultation of the planet Jupiter by the moon on the 2nd of January, 
1857, afforded to English observers some results which have given rise no 
little speculation and theory. 

An occultation of any of the larger planets is always an occurrence of sur- 
passing interest to astronomers, because the clear, well-defined images which 
they present in good telescopes, are pictures of such exquisite delicacy, that 
they afford a very severe test of the condition of the lunar surface as to 
the presence or absence of gaseous or vaporous investment, when that sur- 
face is seen in front of the picture in the act of sweeping before it ; the small- 
est amount of vapor or gas would perceptibly dim and distort the delicately 
sketched light image contemplated under such circumstances. When it is 
Jupiter that undergoes occultation, there is also additional interest, because 
this planet is waited upon by four satellites of considerable brilliancy, which 
have to pass in succession behind, and out from the border of the moon; 
so that there are, as it were, five occultations in one to be observed. 

During the recent occultation of Jupiter, a large number of excellent ob- 
servations were recorded. From among the trust-worthy observers, Messrs. 
W. &. Grove, Dawes, Hartnup, and J. Watson, Dr. Mann and Lord Wrot- 
tesly agreed in the positive statement that there was no perceptible altera- 
tion of the planet’s figure, or distortion of outline, while the planetary image 
Was in apparent contact with the moon, and under good optical definition. 
Mr. William Simms and Mr. Lassell, on the other hand, described the 
curved outline of the planet as appearing to be flattened, or bent outwards 
towards the moon's limb. Mr. Lassell’s observation, however, affords a sug- 
gestion for the ready explanation of this discrepancy. This gentleman 
noted distortion as the planet went behind the moon, but distinctly states 
that there was none as it came out from concealment; and further remarks, 
that the air was very unsettled, and vision very unsteady at the commence- 
ment, but the definition much more even and satisfactory at the conclusion 
of the occultations. Mr. William Simms also says that the atmosphere at 
Carshalton, where his observation was made, was very unsteady. In all 
probability, the distortion of the planet’s figure, noticed by these observers, 
was due to the unfavoralle state of the earth’s own atmosphere at their stations, 
causing the image of the planet to tremble and undulate while under in- 
spection. 


3896 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Mr. Hartnup and Dr. Mann noticed that the line-like segment of the 
planet’s disc was broken up into three or four beads of light, just before it 
finally disappeared behind the moon. This result was due to small projec- 
tions of the moon’s border crossing the streak of light in some places, while 
portions of the streak were still visible at indentations of the lunar edge in 
others. Mr. Hartnup saw the third satellite of the planet shining in the midst 
of a large indentation of this kind for a second or two, and looking as if 
within the circumference of the lunar face. Professor Challis, employing 
the great Northumberland refractor at Cambridge, noticed that the moon's 
dark limb, as it swept in front of the bright planetary surface, was dis- 
tinctly jagged and zigzagged by valleys and mountain-peaks. 

As the planet slipped out from behind the bright side of the half-illumed 
six-day-old moon, the different characters of the planetary and lunar light 
were strikingly apparent. The planet’s face was about as pale again as the 
moon’s, and seemed to most of the observers watching it to wear, as com- 
pared with the moon’s aspect, a soft greenish hue. Mr. Lassell was of 
opinion that the planetary faintness was mainly the result of the relatively 
large brilliant surface the moon presented in such close proximity ; he 
believed that there would not have seemed anything like so marked a differ- 
ence of intensity, if the planet had been contemplated in contact with a 
piece of the moon, haying dimensions not larger than itself. 

But the most interesting fact yet remains to be told. The bright border 
of the moon at this time crossed the soft green face of the planet, not with 
a clear, sharply cut outline like that which had been presented as the dise 
passed into concealment; it was fringed by a streak or band of graduated 
shadow, commencing at the moon’s edge as a deep-black line, and being 
then stippled off outwardly until it dissolved away in the green light of the 
planet’s face. This shade-band was about a tenth part of the planet’s disc 
broad, and of equal breadth from end to end. Mr. Lassell described it as 
offering to his practised eye precisely the same appearance that the obscure 
ring of Saturn presents to a higher magnifying power, where that appendage 
crosses in front of the body of the Saturnian sphere. 

There could be no mistake concerning the actual existence of this 
curious and unexpected apparition. It was independently noticed and 
described by at least six trustworthy observers, and the descriptions of it 
given by each of these corresponded with the minutest accuracy. The sha- 
dow was seen and described by Mr. Lassell, at Liverpool; by the Rev. Pro- 
fessor Challis, at the observatory at Cambridge; by the Rey. W. R. Dawes, 
at Wateringbury ; by Dr. Mann and Captain Swingburne, R. N., at Vent- 
nor; and by Mr. William Simms, at Carshalton. It therefore only needs 
that the unusual presence should be accounted for; the handwriting being 
there, the question remains to be answered; “ Can its interpretation be 
found?” Can science read the meaning of this shadow-fringe inscription ? 
Are there minds that can fathom, as well as eyes that could catch, this 
signal-hint thrown out by Jupiter at the instant of its emergence from its 
forced concealment behind the moon ? 

It was Mr. Dawes’s impression on the instant, that the mysterious shadow 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 897 


was simply an optical spectrum —a deep blue fringe to the light haze 
caused by the object-glass of his telescope having been accidentally over-cor- 
rected for one of the irregularities incident to chromatic refraction. This no- 
tion, of course, became altogether untenable so soon as it was known that 
the same appearance had been noted by other telescopes, in which the same 
incidental imperfection had no place. All felt that the shadow could not be 
referred to a regular atmospheric investment of the moon’s solid sphere, be- 
cause under such circumsiances the streak should have been always seen 
when the rim of the moon rested in a similar way across a planetary dise. 
The sagacious Plumian professor of astronomy at Cambridge, Professor 
Challis, seems to have been the first to hit upon the true interpretation of the 
riddle. The indefatigable star-seer has long suspected that the broad dark 
patches of the lunar surface —the seas of the old selenographists — are really 
shallow basins filled by a sediment of vapor which has settled down into 
those depressions ; in other words, he conceived that there are fog-seas, al- 
though there are no water-seas, in the moon. The general surface and 
higher projections of the lunar spheroid are altogether uncovered and bare ; 
but vapors and mists have rolled down into the lower regions in sufficient 
quantity to fill up the basin-like hollows, exactly as water has gravitated into 
the beds of the terrestrial oceans. The professor, using the high powers of 
the magnificent telescope furnished to the Cambridge Observatory by the 
munificence of the late Duke of Northumberland, was able to satisfy him- 
seif that the planet actually did come out from behind a widely gaping hol- 
_ low of the moon’s surface — at the bottom of a lunar fog-sea, seen edgewise, 
so to speak. If a shallow basin extended for some distance round the curv- 
ature of the lunar spheroid, and if it were filled up with vapor, that vapor 
would rest at a fixed level, exactly after the manner of a collection of liquid, 
and such fixed level would be concentric with the general spheroidal curva- 
ture of the satellite. Under such an arrangement, there would therefore 
necessarily be a bulging protuberance of the vapor-surface, through which a 
remote luminary might be seen, when it rested in the requisite position. 
This, then, is Professor Challis’s understanding of Jupiter’s hint. The moon 
has fog-seas upon her surface, and the band of shadow visible upon the face 
of Jupiter as the planet came out from behind the earth’s satellite, was a thin 
upper slice of one of those fog-seas seen by the favorable accident of the 
planet’s light shining for the instant from beyond. 


SPOTS ON THE SURFACE OF THE SUN. 


The Royal Astronomical Society, G. B., have recently presented their 
medal to Mr. Heinrich Schwabe, of Dessau, Germany, for his researches, 
continued for a period of thirty years, on the spots which appear on the sur- 
face of the sun. From the address of the President, in presenting the 
medal, we derived the following information on this topic. 

The plan adopted by Mr. Schwabe is, to note by a number each spot in 
the order of its appearance, carrying on his notation from the first to the last 
spot in each year. He reckons an isolated spot, or a cluster of spots where 


34 


398 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


there is no visible separation between their penumbra, as one group. 
Hence, he observes, the number of spots will depend in a great measure on 
he excellence of the telescope ; and it often happens that clusters of many 
hundred, nay of many thousand spots, will be designated by one number 
only, just as a single isolated spot will be. So great, however, is the sun’s 
tendency to present his spots in the form of clusters, that other observers 
will, in the course of a year, assuredly not find any great difference between 
their numbers and mine. But he particularly impresses on his readers that he 
attaches importance not so much on the absolute number of the groups, as 
on the ratio which obtains between them in different years. 

The result of his investigations has been to establish with a degree of 
probability almost amounting to certainty, that the solar spots pass through 
the phases of maximum and minimum frequency, and vice versa, in a period 
not very different from ten years. 

The exact period Schwabe does not pretend to have determined. That it 
is liable to perturbation is evident. During twenty-seven ycars of the series 
the results were extremely regular; during the last three years they have 
shown symptoms of disturbance. The epoch of minimum, which, consist- 
ently with earlier indications, should have happened in 1853, did not occur 
until 1856. 

Schwabe has not entered into speculations relative to the nature and origin 
of the spots, though he has been careful to note all remarkable appearances 
as they occurred ; and of these he has given an admirable summary in the 
“ Astronomische Nachrichten,” namber 473. There he calls attention to an — 
appearance which, he says, is not uncommon, but which he cannot explain 
on the generally received theory, that the spots are portions of the surface 
of a solid body, scen through openings in a luminous atmosphere that sur- 
rounds it at a distance, and another intervening atmosphere. This theory 
of Sir W. Herschel has been found adequate to explain most of the pheno- 
mena of the spots. But the case to which Schwabe alludes is this. On the 
above hypothesis a spot surrounded by a penumbra, will, by the effect of 
perspective, when it first makes its appearance on the disc, seem to be ex- 
centrically situated on the penumbra, the border of the penumbra towards 
the sun’s centre appearing less broad than the other border. All this is in- 
telligible, but why is not the penumbra equally illuminated all round? For 
it frequently happens that the border turned towards the sun’s centre is dark 
gray, while that towards the sun’s limb is bright gray, and between the lat- 
ter and the nucleus there is a string of light almost as bright as the sun’s 
disc. 

He also mentions having seen, though rarely, the phenomenon which fur- 
nished Francis Wollaston and Lalande with an argument against Alexander 
Wilson, who was the first to advance the theory of the spots being cavities. 
The phenomenon is this: — Sometimes a spot surrounded by a penumbra 
passes over the sun’s disc without the former undergoing any change of re- 
lative position, from the beginning to the end of its course. This apparently 
militates against the cavity theory. Arago says the objection is not insur- 
Mountable. ‘“ Suppose,” says he, “in such cases, that the sides of the 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 399 


openings in the photosphere, through which the spot appears, are not slop- 
ing.” But according to Wilson’s theory the penumbra is formed by the 
sloping sides of the photosphere — and there is the penumbra. Therefore it 
appears that this explanation does not hold good on Wilson’s view. <Ac- 
cording to Sir W. Herschel another stratum is interposed between the solid 
body of the sun and the photosphere. On this hypothesis, it is the part we 
see of the secondary stratum which constitutes the penumbra; if, therefore, 
it be sensibly depressed below the surface of the photosphere a change of 
relative position must ensue. Schwabe’s explanation is, that when the phe- 
nomena in question occur, the secondary stratum has risen to an unusual 
height, and is not sensibly depressed below the photosphere. 

The address of the President of the Society concludes as follows : — 

“You are aware, gentlemen, it has been long known that the intensity of 
magnetic declination is subject to a daily variation; and this variation was 
also known to be in some way connected with the sun, attaining its maxi- 
mum western limit when that body is at its upper and lower culmination, 
and its maximum eastern limit about six o’clock in the morning an evening. 
These are not the exact times, but they are sufficiently near fer our purpose. 
About the year 1850, Professor Lamont announced that this variation was 
again liable to another variation, which observed a period, from maximum 
to minimum, and from minimum to maximum, of about ten years. He was 
led to this result by a discussion of his own observations at Munich. It was 
shortly after fully confirmed by our colleague, General Sabine, by the obser- 
vations made at the Magnetic Observatories of Toronto and Hobarton. But 
in the course of the latter discussions General Sabine detected another im- 
portant circumstance which had escaped Lamont, viz., that the periods of 
maximum variation of the declination-needie correspond exactly with those 
of the maximum frequency of the solar spots, and vice versa, the minimum 
of the one with the minimum of the other. Hardly had General Sabine’s 
paper been read before the Royal Society, on March 18, 1852, when intelli- 
gence was received that two Swiss physicists, Professor Gautier of Geneva, 
and Professor Wolf of Berne, had arrived at the same conclusion, indepen- 
dently of each other, from a perusal of Lamont’s results. 

*‘ All the observations I have mentioned were made during nearly the 
same time — between the years 1840 and 1851 — comprehending only a sin- 
gle period of change. Obviously, therefore, in this state of the inquiry it 
was of the highest importance to obtain a trustworthy serics made at another 
time and under different circumstances. Though hardly to be expected, it 
happened, most fortunately, that such a series was at hand. 

“ The diurnal variation was one of those subjects which, many years ago, 
had particularly interested the vigorous mind of the lamented Arago; and 
among his papers were found the records of a most laborious course of ex- 
periments, conducted with all the care which no one knew better than he how 
to bestow on a delicate investigation. These experiments, extending from 
1820 to 1831, have been rigorously discussed by M. Thoman, and exhibit 
the prevalence of the same law that obtains in the later series. 

“Nor does the evidence of connection rest here. In a recent paper sent to 


400 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the Royal Society, General Sabine has shown that at Toronto (the only series 
hitherto fully discussed) all the magnetic elements subjected to observation 
undergo similar variations. In the face of these coincidences, to doubt the 
relationship between the two phenomena seems to me to be almost as un- 
reasonable as to doubt the influence of the moon on the tides of the ocean. 

“For thirty years never has the sun exhibited his disc above the horizon 
of Dessau without being confronted by Schwabe’s imperturbable telescope, 
and that appears to have happened on an average about 300 days a year. 
So, supposing that he observed but once a day, he has made 9000 observa- 
tions, in the course of which he discovered about 4700 groups. This is, I 
believe, an instance of devoted persistence (if the word were not equivocal, 
I should say, pertinacity) unsurpassed in the annals of astronomy. ‘The en- 
ergy of one man has revealed a phenomenon that had eluded even the sus- 
picion of astronomers for 200 years.” 


PERIODICAL METEORS. 


The periodical meteors of August, 1857, were studied by the orders of M. 
Le Verrier, the Astronomer Royal of France, from Paris and Orleans, by 
simultaneous observations, to ascertain their actual distance from the earth, 
by calculating the angles at which they appeared to the two observers. But 
out of about sixty seen, Mr. Liais, who discussed the results, could be cer- 
tain of only six being the same stars seen by both. These six stars, at the 
moment of appearing and disappearing, were calculated to be distant from 
the earth as follows : 


No. 1, 35,000 —— 11,000 maeETER) ae to 23.7 miles 


No. 2, 83,000 —— 25,000 BAN (ii8 
No. 38, 31,000-—— 21,000“ st 20.14. 
No. 4, 37,000 — 25,000 ie “ roses Mie 
No, 5, 83,000—— 138,000 ‘“ e 7 
No. 6, 119,000-—— 66,000 ** a 79.44 $8 


and their rapidity, as 14, 14, 16, 17, 55, and 75 miles per second, which af- 
fords the curious coincidence (for in the very imperfect state of our knowl- 
edge about these mysterious visitants this fact is little more), that the highest 
were the swiftest. 

In 1839, De Vico at Rome, and Nobile at Naples, made simultaneous ob- 
servations of this sort in the nights of the 23d, 24th, 25th, and 31st of 
August, and saw the same meteor thirty-one times, and so exact were the re- 
sults that they served as well as the best ordinary methods for correcting the 
difference of longitude cf those places forty-three leagues apart, while Paris 
is only twenty-eight leagues from Orleans. 


DISCOVERY OF DOUBLE STARS. 


Some very interesting discoveries of double stars have recently been made 
by Mr. Alvan Clark, of Boston, the well known telescope manufacturer, who 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 401 


has adopted the plan of testing the efficiency of his object-glasses when com- 
pleted, by sweeping for new double stars of the last degree of difficulty, 
rather than by the examination of objects whose character was previously 
known. At first, under the impression that every such object in the north- 
ern hemisphere visible with telescopes of moderate aperture must already 
have been picked up and registered during the careful examinations of that 
portion of the heavens by the Siruves with the Dorpat refractor of 9°6 
inches aperture, and with the Pculkova of fifteen, Mr. Clark confined his 
search to the southern hemisphere ; and his diligence and skill were rewarded 
by the discovery of several interesting objects, which, it might be supposed, 
would hardly have escaped the Dorpat telescope if they had been as de- 
cidedly double in 1826 as they are now. Latterly, however, having ventured 
to extend his researches northward, he has made some discoveries which are 
almost startling (especially the duplicity of the very minute companion of wu 
Herculis), and are sufficient to show that there is much which may be 
achieved by a diligent use of instruments of moderate dimensions, provided 
they are also of extreme perfection. 


ON A LAW OF TEMPERATURE DEPENDING UPON LUNAR 
INFLUENCE. 


Tn a paper on the above subject, read before the Dublin meeting of the 
British Association, by Mr. J. P. Harrison, the author commenced by saying 
that, although the question of lunar influence on the atmosphere of our 
planet was very generally considered as set at rest by the investigations of 
M. Arago, yet he felt very confident that he was in a position to prove the 
law he was now about to announce without fear of contradiction. He had 
reduced and thrown into the form of tables and of curves 280 lunations, with 
the corresponding mean temperatures ; and the laws at which he had arrived 
were ; first, between the first and second octant the temperature immediately 
after the first quarter, both on the average and also, with rare exceptions, in 
each individual lunation is higher than the temperature shortly before the 
first quarter; secondly, and more particularly the mean temperature of the 
annual means of the second day after the first quarter (or the tenth day of 
the moon’s age) is always higher than that of the third day before the first 
; quarter (or the fifth day of the lunation). 

Mr. Fulbrook, of Sussex, England, in a recent communication to the Lon- 
don Athenzum, calls attention to the result of his investigations of the 
moon’s position with reference to the plane of the earth’s orbit, considered 
in connection with the rain fall. He says, “I am induced to do this, 
because I think it is extremely desirable that meteorological observers of 
other latitudes should investigate this important subject. Should any do so, 
I shall feel greatly obliged by being informed of the result. ‘The moon oc- 
cupies about twenty-seven days in passing from any point — say her aseend- 
ing node—round the zodiac to the same again. During one half of this 
time she is in north (celestial) latitude, the other half in south latitude. I 
took one hundred such lunar courses in due order. The fall of rain during 


34* 


————_——_———., 


402 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


five days in each of the one hundred courses — five hundred days about, or 
near, the time the moon was ascending through the plane of the carth’s orbit 
— amounted to 47°60 inches, while the samc number of days in the opposite 
part of her course, i. c., when she was descending through the plane, only 
gave 26°42 inches. The wettest point just preceded the ascent of the moon, 
and the driest the descent of that luminary through the plane of the earth’s 
orbit. Whatever may be the more immediate cause of the above mentioned 
difference — whether the ascent of the moon, through the plane, towards the 
Northern Pole produces aerial currents from south to north, or whether it 
diminishes the atmospheric pressure, and thus promotes evaporation and an 
excess of rain — it is reasonable to infer that when she is thus, in some way, 
producing such excess in this hemisphere, comparatively dry weather obtains 
in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa, and that intermediate latitudes 
experience intermediate effects.” 


GALES OF THE ATLANTIC. 


During the past year Lieut. M. F. Maury, the director of the National Ob- 
servatory, has published a series of charts of the North and South Atlantic, 
exhibiting by means of colors the prevalence of gales over the more stormy 
parts of the oceans, for each month in the year. One color shows the region 
in which there is a gale every six days, another color every six to ten days, 
another every ten to fourteen days, and there is a separate chart for each 
month and each ocean. The author observes that this is the first attempt to 
delineate the rain regions over these oceans, and that although the result has 
cost much labor, it is necessarily imperfect in consequence of the few obser- 
vations as data on which he has had to rely. It is an initial step in an im- 
portant work. 


ON THE ZODIACAL LIGHT. 


At the Montreal meeting of the A. A. A. 8. Capt. Wilkes, U. S. N., pre- 
sented a paper on the Zodiacal Light, of which the following is an abstract : 

In the outset he stated that the suggestions he had to present were the re- 
sult of numerous observations taken during the prosecution of the United 
States Exploring Expedition to the South Seas, several years ago, and that 
the conclusions to which he had arrived then were abundantly confirmed by 
more recent observation. 

All the observations of the zodiacal light showed that it had not changed 
its appearance since two centuries ago, when first noticed by Cassini; and by 
observing it particularly, with reference to the great circles of the globe — 
ecliptic and equinoctial —it becomes manifest that all changes of its appear- 
ance depends solely on the position of the spectator on the surface of the 
globe. The theories which have been entertained of this light are various. 
Some derive it from the atmosphere of the sun —holding that it is illumin- 
ated matter thrown off from his equator, revolving with immense velocity, 
which takes a particular shape. Others have held that it is a nebulous ring, 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 403 


with the sun for its centre, extending near to or beyond the earth’s orbit. 
Another hypothesis supposes that this nebulous ring has the earth for its cen- 
tre; and still others surmise that this phenomena is nebulous matter floating 
in space, to which the periodical showers of stars may be traced, as the earth 
happens in its orbit to pass through or encounter them. It seems impossible 
to reconcile any of these hypotheses or surmises with the facts which close 
observation has developed. ‘They fail to satisfy us of their correctness, as 
they are soon perceived to be inconsistent with well ascertained facts. 

The zodiacal light, when first visible on a clear horizon, appears as a semi- 
circular arc, with six or ten degrees base, well designed and distinct to the 
eye, though no two persons could trace the same outline of it. As darkness 
progresses, this semi-circular arc elongates upwards, in successive altitudes, 
sometimes to the altitude of sixty degrees. When it has attained its highest 
point, the diffused light becomes visible, extending on each side over a large 
area, until lost in the obscurity of night. It is totally different from the ex- 
tended light of sunset, with crepuscular rays, or the diffused light of twi- 
light. When it becomes visible, it continues so, gradually lessening in 
height, until the whole is lost beneath the horizon. Its apex is always ob- 
served in the ecliptic, to the east or west of the sun, usually at the distance 
of sixty to eighty degrees, but at times, under favorable circumstances, it is 
seen to extend as far as 110 degrees. 

The evening and morning zodiacal light in the same latitude do not cor- 
respond in phase or azimutn. This, though among the remarkable facts it 
exhibits, has never been taken into consideration in any of the theories 
hitherto advanced. Its peculiar phase and the constant change of azimuth 
and inclination, whether the observer remains stationary for any time or 
varies his position in latitude, should satisfy every one that it cannot be far 
removed from the earth. Attentive and close observation shows that its va- 
riations in azimuth correspond to the regular changes of the plane of the 
ecliptic with the observer’s horizon or with the vertical line passing through 
his zenith. Its phases will be seen to be dependent upon the latitude. The 
vividness of the light and its extent are in like manner to be ascribed to the 
observer’s position on the earth. Within the tropics, and when the ecliptic 
is perpendicular to the horizon, the zodiacal light is confined to a slender 
column having its diffused light widely extended. Without the tropics it is 
always seen yery much inclined to the horizon. It then assumes the ap- 
pearance of a cone, cut more or less obliquely by the horizon. In northern 
latitudes the light had a greater altitude than in more southern ones ; but 
owing to the long twilights, was little visible, though it might be observed in 
the vernal and autumnal equinoxes even in this latitude. The light in the 
morning was not of the same color as in the evening; in the first case being 
grayish, in the other having a reddish blush, depending on the approach or 
retreat of the sun. After sunrise, he had seen it reach the zenith, with a 
breadth of only two and a half degrees. Sometimes the phenomenon was 
very beautiful, as if a gauze veil were spread over the atmosphere, through 
which the stars could be readily, though dimly seen. Thus the light stood 
alone and distinct from all others ; its central line being parallel to the eclip- 


404 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tic, usually a little to the north or south of it, but sometimes corresponding 
with it. 

The facts observed by him from observation, condensed, are as follows : 

1. The zodiacal light occupies a constant relative position in the plane of 
the ecliptic, preceding or following the sun. 

2. Its central line is parallel with and coincides with the ecliptic. 

3. Its apex varies in distance sixty to one hundred and ten degrees from 
the sun. Its height above the horizon seldom exceeds sixty degrees. 

4. Its azimuth changes with the sun, and with the observer’s position on 
the earth. 

5. Its inclination alters with the position of the observer in latitude, from 
the vertical down to an acute angle with the horizon. 

6. The morning and evening zodiacal light are different in phase, color, 
altitude, and inclination, depending upon the angle subtended between the 
observer’s horizon and the plane of the ecliptic. 

7. Its apex lies always south of the zenith when the observer is north of 
the ecliptic, and north of the zenith when he is to the south of the ecliptic. 

8. When the ecliptic passes through the zenith of the observer, the column 
of light is vertical to the horizon; it then assumes the appearance of a nar- 
row belt, with a well defined apex. 

9. North or south of the ecliptic, the zodiacal light exhibits a broader 
phase, but less in altitude than when under it. 

10. The zodiacal light is never seen until the sun has set and twilight 
ended, or until all reflected light is cut off ; therefore, visibility depends upon 
the continuance of twilight. 

11. Owing to the length of twilight, the zodiacal light is seldom ever near 
the limiting parallel. The limiting parallels vary with the sun’s declination. 

12. The sun’s rays falling perpendicularly on the atmosphere within the 
tropics, are not reflected ; consequently after sunset there is little or no twi- 
light. 

These facts go to prove that this phenomenon is the result of the illumin- 
ation of that portion or section of the earth’s atmosphere on which the rays 
of the sun fall perpendicularly. It will readily be conceived that rays of 
light will illuminate a column or portion of atmosphere on which they may 
fall, when no reflected or diffusive light interferes to prevent its being visible. 
To illustrate: if the direct rays of the sun are admitted through a hole ina 
shutter into a darkened room, the atmosphere and the particles floating in it 
become as visible and distinct when all reflected light is cut off as any well 
defined object. It is this which we believe takes place when the rays of the 
sun fall perpendicularly on our atmosphere, and produce such an effect which 
becomes visible upon the earth’s surface when this column is above the hori- 
zon, within the limiting parallels, and after the twilight has ceased. The 
whole earth is constantly exposed to and revolves in the sun’s rays. <A part 
of these rays only fall perpendicularly on our atmosphere, while all others 
strike it obliquely, are reflected and refracted by it. As the earth revolves, 
this column or section of the atmosphere which lies in the ecliptic or earth’s 
orbit becomes illuminated in succession, and thus appears permanently at- 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 405 


tendant on the sun. It is this section or cone which is visible when all re- 
flected light is cut off, and has been named the Zoidiacal Light. This theory 
seems to account for all the phenomena which the zodiacal light exhibits. 

As the column or cone of illuminated atmosphere has apparently a yisible 
extent in the heavens, along a parallel with the ecliptic, both preceding and 
following the sun, it has produced the delusion that it belongs to or is con- 
nected with the heavens. A moment’s reflection satisfies us that this phe- 
nomenon as seen projected in the heavens with the starry host twinkling 
through it may produce the same effect, and we are only able to overcome 
this ocular deception by proving, as we have done by attentive observation, 
that it is of this earth, or closely connected with it, from its constantly under- 
going great changes in azimuth, phase, inclination and altitude, as well to a 
stationary observer as to one who is passing over the earth’s surface from 
north to south, and vice versa. If it were distant or of heavenly origin, this 
would not be the case, as these rapid changes could not then take place. 
Therefore we are compelled to admit that we are deceived, and that its local- 
ity must be in the atmosphere surrounding this globe, and be an illuminated 
section of it which becomes visible as soon as twilight ceases and darkness 
ensues. That it lies between us and the milky way is evident — for when 
bright it nearly eclipses that starry nebulz. This theory is in strict accord- 
ance with all the observations yet made. 

Now it may be understood how all bodies giving sufficient light to illumi- 
nate the atmosphere by perpendicular rays may produce an effect similar to 
the zodiacal light, though in a much less degree. A corresponding appear- 
ance has been seen to accompany the moon and the larger planets, and to 
this cause Capt. Wilkes attributes the phenomena noticed by the observer 
of the Japan Expedition, leading him to suppose that they were produced 
by the morning and evening zodiacal lights visible at the same moment. 

At the same meeting another paper, on the Zodiacal Light, was presented 
by Rev. George Jones, U. S. N., the author of the theory which supposes 
the phenomena in question to be occasioned by a ring of luminous matter 
encircling the earth. 

Mr. J. stated, that after the publication of his Japan Observations, he felt 
the want of still further data, and determined to go to Quito, Ecuador, as 
the most eligible spot for this purpose. ‘The advantages of this place are 
that it is near the equator, is freer from clouds than lower altitudes in equa- 
torial latitudes usuaily are, and the transparency of the atmosphere at so 
great an cleyation — so valuable in celestial observations. He was here en- 
abled to see the zodiacal light not only at the horizon, but forming a com- 
plete are across the sky, reaching quite from the eastern to the western hori- 
zon, and this at every hour of the night. It was sometimes so bright as to , 
resemble another milky way stretched across the heavens. He brought back 
with him 115 drawings exhibiting the luminous arch, giving its boundaries 
as seen among the stars, and also the centre line —the brightness at the cen- 
tral part being always decidedly greatest — thence diminishing towards the 
edges. The deductions drawn by Mr. J. from these observations are as 
follows : — 


, 


406 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


First — The substance giving the zodiacal light formed a complete circle 
round the earth, as at all the observations which had been taken it was found 
that the light extended completely across the sky from east to west; and 
from the observations having been taken at regular intervals during the 
night, the arch was observed at different angles to within eighteen degrees of 
a complete circle. 

Second —It was a great circle, forming an angie of three deg. twenty 
min. with the ecliptic, the ascending node being at longitude sixty-two deg., 
and descending node at longitude two hundred and forty-two deg. The 
width appeared to vary at different times, seeming to be greatest at the latest 
observations, which he attributed to his sight having become more accus- 
tomed to the light. He came, however, to the conclusion that the average 
width as seen with the eye is twenty-eight degrees, which, at say 100,000 
miles, would give a nebulous circle of enormous extent. 

Third —It is a geocentric circle. If it were heliocentric, then the portions 
in the direction of the sun would have to be 170 or 190 millions of miles _ 
from the spectator, and the opposite side comparatively near to him, conse- 
quently this ring, by the rules of perspective, would be made at the nearest 
part, and greatly narrowed near the sun, where it would terminate almost in 
a point. 

The facts are not so, for the ring has the same width in its whole extent. 
Again, if heliocentric, the laws of optics for reflected light would require the 
portion nearest to a line with the sun to give less reflected light than 
towards the spectator’s zenith; but the fact is that the light nearest the hori- 
zon is always much brighter than it is higher up. Again, the brightest por- 
tion of the zodiacal light showed an affinity to the spectator’s motion as his 
zenith approached or receded from the ring, which can belong only to an ob- 
ject not very far off. 


ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ORBITS OF COMETS. 


The following is a resumé of a paper read before the British Association 
at is last meeting, by Prof. M. Mosetti, on the above subject : — 

The author commenced by explaining that the simplest and most direct 
method of analyzing the distribution of the comets in space would seem to 
be, to divide the celestial sphere by means of circles parallel to the ecliptic 
into equal zones corresponding to an aliquot part of the entire super‘icies, 
and then to ascertain how many culminating points are contained in each of 
these. If the orbits were uniformly distributed throughout space, each of 
them should contain about an equal number of these points ; if not, the greater 
or less number contained in each will serve to show the tendency the orbits 
have to approach to or recede from that distribution. The author applied 
this method arithmetically in the first instance ; and afterwards, in order to 
render the results more palpable, reduced them to a graphic construction. 
He thus found the orbits to have a tendency to approach in preva-ling 
numbers the polar regions of the ecliptic. The minimum occurs in the fifth 
zone of each hemisphere. ,Those whose parhelia are in the Northern hemis- 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 407 


phere exceed those whose parhelia are in the southern in the proportion of 
three to two, five to six, or nearly equal. The author calls the Great Circle, 
which passes so as to divide the Milky Way pretty equally, the Galaxy 
Circle. In the centre of this the Sun and Earth may be considered to be 
placed ; it cuts the ecliptic towards the solstitial points, and is inclined to it 
at about sixty deg. He then finds that the planes of the orbits of the comets 
are, for the most part, little, if at all, inclined to the plane of the Galaxy Circle, 
and that they go on decreasing in number as that inclination increases ; and, 
therefore, he concludes that some cosmical cause must have led to such a 
result. Also, the parhelia of by far the greatest number of those he has dis? 
cussed are found near the Galaxy Circle, showing that when they are passing 
most closely under the influence of the Sun they are both near the Galaxy 
Circle, and their proper motion is nearly parallel to its plane. Hence the 
greater number of comets come to us from the region of the Galaxy itself. 


THE DIVISION OF BIELA’S COMET, 
BY D. VAUGHAN. 

The forces which occasionally disturb the tranquillity of our atmosphere, 
must have a wide field for their operation in the vast expanse of acriform 
matter, which constitutes the principal part of cometary bodies. Like all 
light bodies, the air we breathe is very sensitive to electrical attraction and 
repulsion ; and this becomes a frequent cause of storm. Wherever the prev- 
alence of moisture makes the superfluous electricity descend from the region 
of the clouds to the ground, the air is repelled, and forms an ascending cur- 
rent. As it undergoes expansion during the ascent, the cold which this 
occasions condenses the accompanying vapor; so that descending drops of 
rain diffuse moisture through the medium which they traverse, and thus im- 
prove its conducting power. Accordingly, the discharges of electricity are 
constantly repeated, and the aerial current continues to ascend, while the sur- 
rounding air presses on to the scene of action, and participates in the great 
movement. Such is Dr. Hare’s theory of storms; but some part must be 
ascribed to the heat evolved by the condensation of the watery vapor. 

If the small quantity of dense matter which is required to hold together 
the rare cometary gases, contained a large proportion of water or some other 
volatile substance, much vapor should be generated-on the approach of the 
comet near the sun. Whenever this vapor condensed, at the place screened 
from the solar rays or in any other locality, a discharge of electricity would 
occur between the envelop and the central mass of the comet, while ascend- 
ing currents of air commenced in the rare fluid, and determined the focus of 
astorm. Owing to its vast height, the greater part of the nebulous appen- 
dage would participate in the movement, and give it a degree of impetuosity 
which the feeble attractive power of the nucleus could scarcely control. If 
ascending currents of air on our own planet prevent condensed vapor from 
falling until it forms large drops of rain, hailstones of considerable size, and 
in some cascs, waterspouts ; the vapor returning to a liquid state in the at- 
mosphere of a comet, where gravity is many thousand times more feeble, 
might be sustained by similar ascending currents, until it had collected into 


408 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


bodies as large as lakes or seas. Even large collections of the fluid evapo- 
rated from the central nucleus, may be sometimes driven in this manner be- 
yond the sphere of the comet’s effective attraction ; and may separate for 
ever from the primitive mass, taking away by its attraction much of the at- 
tenuated matter composing the envelop. 

That the division of Biela’s comet arose from a cause of this nature is 
proved by a remarkable fact. The two parts into which this body divided 
were almost equal in size and brilliancy, when nearest to the sun ; but at < 
more considerable distance from him, one was about eight times as large as 
the other, and about four times as bright. This shows that they differed 
much in their capabilities of affording material for evaporation ; and it is 
precisely what should occur if one were fluid and the other composed aimost 
exclusively of solid matter. On approaching the sun, the nebulous appen- 
dage of the first should swell by the introduction of vapor, while the small 
amount of vapor contained in the other would be only rendered invisible by 
solar heat. Other comets manifest signs of similar commotions; and we 
cannot fail to recognize the close relation between the agencies operating on 
our own globe and on the more humble members of the solar family. 


ON THE GRAND CURRENTS OF ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION. 


The following is an abstract of a new theory of atmospheric circulation 
brought before the British Association, at Dublin, by Mr. J. Thomson : — 

It has been ascertained as a matter of observation, that in latitudes ex- 
tending from about thirty degrees to the poles, the winds, while prevailing 
from west to east, prevail also in directions from the equator towards the 
poles. Now this motion towards the poles appears not to have been hitherto 
satisfactorily explained. In fact it is the contrary motion to what is natur- 
ally to be expected when the theory of Halley, which was given about the 
year 1686, and which appears to afford the true key to the explanation of 
the trade winds, is followed up with respect to the circulation of the air in 
other latitudes than those in which the trade winds occur. According to this 
theory so applied, it would naturally be expected that the air, having risen 
to the upper regions of the atmosphere in a hot zone at the equator, should 
float towards the north and south polar regions in two grand upper currents, 
retaining, as they pass to higher latitudes, some remains, not abstracted by 
friction and admixture with the currents below, of the rapid equatorial 
motion of about 1,000 miles per hour from west to east, which they had in 
moving with the earth’s surface at the equator. Also, it would be expected 
that the air in the polar regions should have a prevailing tendency to sink 
towards the surface of the earth, in consequence of its increased density 
caused by cold; and that it should tend to flow from the polar regions along 
the surface of the earth, towards the equator, with a prevailing motion from 
west to east in advance of the earth, until, by friction and impulses on the earth’s 
surface, the motion in advance of the earti is retarded and counteracted. The 
theory, however, thus deduced, is found in one essential point to be controverted 
by observations. This point is what was stated in the outset of the present arti- 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 409 


cle, namely,.that the prevailing winds on the surface of the earth in latitudes 
higher than thirty degrees, are, while blowing from the west, as should be 
expected, found to blow more towards the poles than from the poles; and 
thus do not move as if impelled along the surface of the earth from polar to 
equatorial regions by an augmented pressure due to condensation by cold in 
polar regions, and a diminished pressure due to rarefaction in the equatorial 
regions. Observations being thus at variance with the only obvious theory ~ 
proposed, the circumstance in question has been commonly regarded as 
rather paradoxical; and Lieut. Maury found himself forced into supposing 
an entire reversal in latitudes above thirty degrees. of the great circulation 
just described. Mr. Thomson regards Lieut. Maury’s supposition as being 
entirely unsupported by the known physical causes of the atmospheric mo- 
tions. He,.on the contrary, maintains that the great circulation already 
described does actually occur, but occurs subject to this modification, that a 
thin stratum of air on the surface of the earth in the latitudes higher than 
thirty degrees — a stratum in which the inhabitants of those latitudes have 
their existence, and of which the movements constitute the observed winds 
of those latitudes — being, by friction and impulses on the surface of the 
earth, retarded with reference to the rapid whirl or vortex motion from west 
to east of the great mass of air above it, tends to flow towards the pole, and 
actually does so flow, to supply the partial void in the central parts of that 
vortex, dune to the centrifugal force of its revolution. Thus it appears that, in 
temperate latitudes, there are three currents at different heights ;—that the 
uppermost moves towards the pole, and is part of a grand primary circula- 
tion between equatorial and polar regions ; — that the lowermost moves also 
towards the pole, but is only a thin stratum forming a part of a secondary 
circulation ; — that the middle current moves from the pole, and constitutes 
the return current for both the preceding ; — and that all these three currents 
have a prevailing motion from west to east in advance of the earth. 
This is the substance of Mr. Thomson’s theory; and he gives, as an illus- 
fration, the following simple cxperiment:—If a shallow circular vessel, 
with flat bottom, be filled to a moderate depth with water, and if a few small 
objects, very little heavier than water, and suitable for indicating to the eye 
the motions of the water in the bottom, be put in, and if the water be set to 
revolve by being stirred round, then, on the process of stirring being ter- 
minated, and the water being left to itself, the small particles in the bottom 
will be seen to collect in the centre. They are evidently carried there by a 
current determined towards the centre along the bottom, in consequence of 
the centrifugal force of the lowest stratum of the water being diminished in 
reference to a strata above through a diminution of velocity of rotation in 
the lowest stratum by friction on the bottom. The particles being heavier 
than the water, must, in respect of their density, have more centrifugal force 
than the water immediately in contact with them ; and must, therefore, in 
this respect have a tendency to fly outwards from the centre, but the flow of 
water towards the centre overcomes this tendency and carries them inwards ; 
and thus is the flow of water towards the centre in the stratum in contact 
with the bottom palpably manifested. 


35 


OBITUARY 


OF PERSONS EMINENT IN SCIENCE. 1857. 


Anderson, M., an explorer, killed in Southern Africa. 

Archer, J. Scott, inventor of the collodion process. 

Bailey, Prof. J. W., the eminent microscopist. 

Ball, Dr. Robert, an eminent Irish naturalist. 

Beaufort, Admiral, R. N., Hydrographer to the English Navy. 

Biela, M., the well-known astronomer. 

Bonaparte, Charles, Prince of Cannio, distinguished as an ornathologist. 

Bremmar, James, the English engineer who got off the Steamer Great Britain 
from the rocks of Dundrum Bay. 

Britton, John, an English writer on architecture. 

Brunnhoff, Prof. Govanni de, an Italian naturalist. 

Caley, Sir George, a prominent English writer on science. 

Carstenstein, Geo., Architect of the N. Y. Crystal Palace. 

Cauchy, Augustin, a distinguished French mathematician. 

Colla, M., director of the observatory at Parma. 

Conybeare, Rev. W. D., the well-known English geologist. 

Couper, Dr. William, Prof. Nat. Hist. University of Glasgow. 

Dick, Rev. Thomas, well known from his astronomical writings. 

Dufrenoy, A. the distinguished French mineralogist, and Chief of the School of 
Mines. 

Dumont, M. A., a Belgian geologist. 

Fiemming, Prof., a Scotch naturalist. 

Gedney, Com. U. S. N.,an eminent American hydrographer. 

Gliddon, George R., Author of ‘‘ Types of Mankind,” etc. 

Gravenhorst, Dr., an eminent German geoloyist. 

Graves, Capt. R. N., a distinguished English hydrographer. 

Gray, Hon. F. C., a prominent member of the American Academy. 

Hall, Dr. Marshall, the distinguished physiologist. 

Herndon, Lieut. U. S. N., the explorer of the Amazon. Lost at sea. 

Hincks, Dr., an Irish naturalist. 

Harris, Rev. Dr., author of the ‘‘ Pre-Adamite Earth,” etc. 

Jahn, Dr., a celebrated Prussian mathematician. 

Kane, Dr. Elisha K., the Arctic explorer. 

Knapp, Dr., author of ‘‘ British Grasses.” 

Lichtenstein, Dr., Prof. of Nat. Hist. University of Berlin. 

Manny, John H., inventor of ‘‘ Manny’s Reaper.” 

Meyer, Prof. Antoine, an eminent mathematician, of Belgium. 

Mitchell, Prof. Elisha, of North Carolina. 

Murray, Robert, an English chemist. 


OBITUARY. 41] 


¢ 


Pascerini, Prof., an eminent Italian geologist. 

Redfield, W. C., the distinguished American meteorologist. 

Rendell, Jas. M., F. R. S., a distinguished English engineer. 

Rion, M., a Swiss naturalist. 

Savauge, M. F., an eminent French engineer, the claimant of the invention of 
submerged propellers. 

Scoresby, Dr. William, F. R. S., an eminent English physicist. 

Spinola, Marquise, an Italian naturalist. 

Strain, Lieut. U. S. N., a distinguished explorer. 

Taupenot, M., inventcr of the collodio-albumen process. 

Thenard, Baron, the distinguished French chemist. 

Tuomey, Prof. Michael, an eminent American geologist. 

Ure, Andrew, Dr., an English chemist, author of ‘‘ Ure’s Encyclopedia.” 

Vogel, Dr., the African explorer; murdered in Central Africa. 

Young, Hon. Augustus, State Naturalist of Vermont, ete. 

Wossowolschski, M., a naturalist of Moscow. 

Wyeth, N. J., inventor of the ice-machinery. 


LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC., 


ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO SCIENCE, PUBLISHED IN THE 
UNITED STATES DURING THE YEAR 1857. 


« 


Agassiz, Louis. Contributions to the Natural History of the United States. Vols. 
I.and II. Boston: Little & Brown. 

Alchemy and the Alchemists. 12mo. Crosby and Nichols, Boston. 

American Almanac for 1858. Crosby & Nichols, Boston. 

American Association for the Advancement of Science. Proceedings for 1856, 10th 
meeting, pp. 260. 

American Encyclopedia. Vol. First, Ripley and Dana, Editors. Appleton & Co., 
NEY: 

Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Vol. II, Part 1. 
136 pp. 4to, with numerous plates. Cambridge, 1857. 

Bell, John, M. D. The Mineral and Thermal Springs of the United States and 
Canada. 12mo. Parry & McMillan, Philadelphia. 

Bache, Prof. A. D. Coast Survey Report for 1856. Pub. Doc. 

Blake, W. P. Observations on the Physical Geography and Geology of the Coast 
of California from Bodega Bay to San Diego. 

Blodget, Lorin. Climatology of the United Statss, and of the Temperate Latitudes 
of the North American Continent. Embracing a full comparison of these, with 
the Climatology of the Temperate Latitudes of Europe and Asia; with Isother- 
mal and Rain Charts. 8vo. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. 

Branston, 8S. F. Handbook of Practical Receipts. Lindsay & Blakiston, Philadel- 
phia. . 

Brodie, Sir Benjamin. Mind and Matter; or, a Series of Essays intended to Ilus- 
trate the Mutual Relations of the Physical Organization and the Mental Facul- 
ties, with additional Notes by an American Editor. Putnam, N. Y. 

Burgess, N. G. The Ambrotype Manual, a treatise on the art of taking positive 
photographs on glass. Fairchild & Co., N. Y. 

Campbell. A claim of priority in the discovery and naming of the excito-secretory 
system of nerves, by Henry F. Campbell, M. D., Prof. of Comp. Anatomy, 
Medical College of Georgia. Pamphlet. Augusta, Ga. 

Cook, Prof. Third Annual Report on the Geological Survey of the State of New 
Jersey for the year 1855. 80 pp. 8vo. 

Cooke, Prof. J.P. Chemical Problems and Reactions, to accompany Stockhardt’s 
Elements of Chemistry. 130 pp.12mo. Cambridge: John Bartlett. 

Currey, R.O., Dr. A Sketch of the Geology of Tennessee, with a description of its 
soils, productions and palzontology. pp. 128. 8vo., with map. 

Davis, Capt. C. H. Theory of the motion ofthe Heavenly Bodies meving about the 
Sun in Conic Sections. A translation of Gauss’s Theoria Motus. Boston. pp. 
826, and tables pp. 36. 

Flint, C. L. A Practical Treatise on Grass and Forage Plants; Comprising their 


LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. 418 


Natural History, Comparative Nutritive Value, Methods of Cultivating, Cutting 
and Curing, and the Management of Grass Lands. A. O. Moore, N. Y. 
Garlick, Dr. T. Treatise on the Artificial Production of Fish. 8vo. T. Brown. 
Gliddon, G. R.,and J. C. Nott. The Indigenous Races of the Earth; or, New 
Chapters of Ethnological Inquiry. 8yvo. pp. 650. $5.00. Lippincott & Co., 
Philadelphia. 

Graham, Thomas. Elements of Chemistry, including the applications of Science 
inthe Arts. 2d ed. Edited by A. Watts. New York: Balliere. Re-print. 
Gray, Prof. Asa. First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology. Illustrated 
with 350 wood-engravings from original drawings. Ivison & Phinney, N. Y. 
Text-Book in Botany. Enlarged and revised edition. Ivison & 

Phinney, N. Y. 
Botany of the U. S. Exploring Expedition. Plates. G P. Put- 


nam, N.Y. 

Gregory, Wm. Hand-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. Edited by J. Milton Sanders, 
M.D. A.S. Barnes & Co.,N. Y. 8vo. pp. 421. 

- Hand-Book of Organic Clemistry. do. do. pp. 481. 

Hayden, Dr. F. V. Description of New Species and Genera of Fossils collected in 
Nebraska. 

Henry, Prof. J. Smithsonian Report for 1855. Washington. Pub. Doc. 1857. 

Humphrey, S. D. A Manual of the Collodeon Process of Photography. S. D. 
Humphrey, N. Y. $1.00. 

Kurtz, John H., Rey. Exposition of the Biblical Cosmology, and its Relations to 
Natural Science. Translated from the German by T. D. Simonton. Lindsay & 
Blakiston, Philadelphia. 

Lieber, O. M. Report on the Geological Survey of South Carolina; being the First 
Annual Report, embracing the Progress of the Survey during the year 1855. 

Mason, G.C. The Application of Art to Manufactures. 150 Illustrations. G. P. 
Putnam, N. ¥. $2.00. 

Maury, Com. M. F. Wind and Current Charts; Gales in the Atlantic. Pamphlet 
in 4to, of 24 charts. Observatory, Washington. 

Meek and Hayden. Descriptions of New Fossil Species of Mollusca, collected in 
Nebraska Territory. pp. 24. 

Miller, Hugh. The Testimony of the Rocks; or, Geology in its bearings on the 
Two Geologies, Natural and Revealed. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 

Newberry, J.S., M.D. Report on the Economical Geology of the Route of the 
Ashtabula and New Lisbon Railroad. Cleveland, Ohio. 

Norton, Prof. W. First-Book in Natural Philosophy. Barnes & Co., N. Y. 

Oicutt, H.S. The Sorgho and the Imphee. A. O. Moore, N. Y. 

Owen. Key to the Geology of the Globe, by Richard Owen, M.D. A.S. Barnes 
& Co., N. Y. 

tto. A Manual of the Detection of Poisons by Medico-chemical Analysis. By 
Dr. Fr. Otto. Translated from the German, with Notes and Additions, by 
William Eiderhorst. M.D. 12mo. pp. 178. Balliere, N. Y. 

Patent Office Reports for 1856. Chas. Mason, Commissioner. Pub. Doc. 

Leiree, Prof. B. A System of Analytic Mechanics. Boston: Little & Brown. 

Porter, Prof. J. A. First Book of Chemistry and the allied Sciences, including an 
outline of Agricultural Chemistry. 15mo. Barnes & Co., N. Y. 

Smith, Dr. F. G. Experiments on Digestion. Pamphlet. pp.16. Philadelphia. 

Stansbury, C. F. Chinese Sugar-cane and Sugar Making. A. O. Moore, N. Y. 

Sullivant. Musci Boreali-Americani, sive Specimina Exsiccata Muscorum in Amer- 
ice Rebuspublicis Foederatis detectorum, conjunctis studiis W.S. Sullivant et 
L. Lesquereux. Columbi Ohioensium; sumptibus auctorum, 1856. 

Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at St. Louis. 

United States Japan Expedition. Vol. II. 420 pp. 4to, with maps and plates. 

Warner, John. Studies in Organic Morphology. Pamphlet. Lippincott & Co., 
Philadelphia. 


414 LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. 


Warren. Explorations in the Dacota Country in the year 1855, by G. K. Warren, 
Topographical Engineer of the Sioux Expedition. 80 pp. 8vo. Washington. 
Exec. Doc. No. 76, 84th Congress, Ist Session. 

Weissenborn, G. American Engineering Illustrated. $1 per number. 

Wells, David A. Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1857. Boston: Gould & Lin- 
coln. 

— Elements of Natural Philosophy, for Schools, Academies, and 
Private Students. Ilustrated with 375 engravings. pp.452. Ivison & Phinney, 
ie & 


— Science of Common Things; or, First Book in Physical Science. 
pp. 825. Ivison & Phinney, N. Y. 

—_—_-——_—_———__ Things not Generally Known. pp. 482. Appleton & Co., N.Y. 

Wilkes, Capt. Chas. Theory of the Zodiacal Light. 

Yeomans, E. L. Hand-Book of Household Science, or a popular account of heat, 


light, air, aliment and cleansing. Appleton & Co.,N. Y. 


LN Dat. 


Abbot’s Horometer, 256 
Acoustic phenomena, new, 250 
Actinic power of the sun, 211 
frostation, experiments in, 85 
Air in the bones of birds 392 


Alkalies, and Alkaline earths, electric 


conducting power of, 145 
Alloys, new, 295-6 
Alum, use of in bread, 333 
Aluminium, alloys of, 289 

“ manufacture of, 287 
£ new applications of, 333 


Aluminium, use of in bells, i 
American Association for the Advance- 


ment of Science, 3 
Ammonia in Dew, 843 
Anesthetics, application of, 317 

ee ne MEV, 818, 319 
Angle, trisection of, 144 
Arboriculture, new facts in, 330 
Arsenic, use of in steeping grain for 

seed, 
Art, influence of upon organic struc- 

ture, 386 
Art in nature, 85 
Astronomy, recent progress of, 394 
Atlantic, gales in, 402 
Atlantic telegraph, battery for, 158 
Atmosphere, has the moon an ? 895 
Atmosphere, origin of electricity in, 151 
Atmospheric circulation, 408 
Aurora, origin and cause of, 174 

og seen at Point Barrow, 175 
Axles, new mode of lubricating, 49 
Axles, railroad car, strength of, 60 
BAILEY, Prof., microscopic collec- 

tion of, 886 
Balls, concentric ivory of the Chi- 

nese, 86 
Barometer, self-indicating balance, 253 
Barometers, new, 253, 255 


Baskets, new method of making, 110 
Battery, galv. Doat’s new, constant, 160 
ae ‘« _ Jedlik’s improved, 162 
« - Kuhn’s, ATALG 
ee ee of triple contact,. 161 
Batteries, Galvanic, improvements in, 160 
Battery of the Atlantic telegraph, 158 
Beach, M.Y., improved printing press, 98 
Bell-metal, 73 


Pace. 
Bells and Bell Founding, 
Bessemer question, present state of, 293 
Birds, existence ot air in the bones of, 392 
Boats, Clifford’s invention for lower- 


ing, 38 
Boilers, steam, feeding by meter, 41 
cS s improvements in, 42 

ce < mud pockets for, 43 

oe cs safety escape pipe for 44 

“« _ -» Wright’s improved, 42, 
Bombs, manufacture of, 89 
Bones, solubility of in water, 805 
Boron, interesting researches on, 284 
Bread, detection of alum in, 338 


Bread-kneading machine, (Berdan’s) 112 
British Association for the Promo- 


tion of Science, = 
Bronzes, restoration of, 295 
Brooklyn water-works, engines of 45 
Cable, submarine Atlantic telegraph, 
deposition of, 7. 
Calculating machine, Scheutz’s, 78 
California, mammoth trees of, 885 
Capillarity, influence of temperature 
on, 
Car-wheels, improvement in the man- 
ufacture of, 48 
Carbon, formed from gas, 272 
Carbon, pure, use of asa medicine, 843 
Carbon, sulphuret, industriai employ- 
ment of, 308 
A sulphide, new, 811 
Cartridges, improved method of man- 
ufacture, 90 
Castor oil, 315 
Cavendy’s Tripod, 253 
Chichester, L. S. 67 
Chimborazo, ascent of, 861 
Chromium, and its alloys, 281 
Circle, Quadrature of, 143 
Clay-stones, origin of, 296 
Cloth, rendering water-proof, 100 
Coast, —sea, of L. Island and New 
| _ Jersey, subsidence of, 
0 | Coinage, discoveries in relation to; 68 


Collodion, preparation of for surgical 
purposes, 

Collodion Processes, resume ot 234 

Color of dissolved salts, effect of heat ° 
on; * 


—_ 


416 INDEX. 
PAGE. Pacer. 
Color of salts in solution, 217 | Fire-proof fabrics, 98 
Coloring matter, extraction of, 103 | Fish, artificially reared, 390 
Combs, ivory, machine for sorting, 110, Fishes, electrical, employment of 2s 
Combustion, inf. of solar light upon, 198 | medical shock machines, 149 
Comets, density and mass of, 3851 | Fishes, habits of, 339 
Compass, chronometer, 255 | Flax fibres, improvement in the pre- 
“ Graham’s improved magnetic, 172 | paration of, 67 
Comet, Biela’s, 497 | Flutes improvements in, 110 
‘. Brorsen’s, 395 | Fluids, solidification of, 208 
Conservatism of force, 177 | Finorine in the blood, 341 


Conglomerates, origin Of, . 805 

Coppers, commercial, electric con- 
ductivity of, 

Corn-husking machines, 

Cotton, Sea-Island, machine for gin- 
ning, 67 

Cotton-spinning, improvements in, 67 

Counterfeits, photographic, method of 
detecting, 235 

Couplings, tubes for, 77 


Dams, vibrations occasioned by water 


falling over 250 
Dead, on the cremation of, 84 
Dew, ammonia in, 343 
Dial, universal, 255 | 
Diamagnetism, character of, 175 
Diamond, use of for lenses cf micr’s. 226 


Digestion, experiments on, 
Disinfecting powders, composition of, 315 
Double stars, discovery of, 400 
Drainage, illustrations of, 264 
Dyeing, some new principles con- 
cerned in, 341 
Dynamomeier, Leonard’s improved, &3 
Earth, density of, 189 


E “figure of, 190 
Earth's surface, directicn of gravity on 192 


Earthquakes, consideration of the 
cause of, 564 
Eges, preservation of, 111 


Electric currents, existence of opposite 
in the same wire, 

Electric conducting power of the alka- 
lies and alkaline earths, 


146 
146 


Electric machine, simple, 145 
Electrical apparatus,improved, 154,155 


Electrical excitation, new source of, 150 
Electrical figures, new mode of pro- 


ducing and fixing, 147 
Electrical fishes, 149 
Electrical paper, 145 


Electricity, atmospheric, new method 
of observing, 148 
Electro-dynamic induction machine, 154 
Electrotype process, improvements in,172 
Elements, general methods of prepar- 
ing, 278 
Emmons, Dr. E., observations on the 


sandstones of North Carolina, 318 
Engine, Ericsson’s hot air, 40 | 
Engraving by light and electricity, 229 
Engraving on wood, photographs for, 228 


Ericsson’s Hot Air Engine, 43 
Ether and chloroform, gelatinized, 3828 | 
Evaporation, sclar, improvements in, 109 | 


984 


Fabrics, rendering fire-proof, 
ee St water-proof, 
Figures, electrical, 


Fires, extinguishing on ship-board, 9&5} 


99,10 i 
147: 


Force, disposition of in paramagnetic 


and diamagnetic bodies, 176 
Force, monozenesis of, 189 
Foree, on the conservatism of, iT 
Forces, interaction of natura}, 118 
Fossils, new from the Potsdam sand- 

stone, 77 
France, military resources of, 23 
French inventions, recent, 27 
Fruits, coloring of the skin of, 333 


Furnace, hot-air, requisites fora perf. 55 
Furnaces and heaters, improvm’ts in, 56 


Furnace, Beaufume’s Gas-flame, 49 
Furnaces, Reverberatory, 56 
Gales of the Atlantic, 402 
| Gas-burners, anti-flickering [Bacheld- 
er’s], 118 
< i improved, 113 
Gas-carbon, 272 
Gases, sounds produced by combust- 
ion of in tubes, 242, 
Gauge, Rugg’s Steam-boiler, water, 53 


Geographical Explorations, recent, 8,9,10 


Geology, recent progress of, 350 
Gilding and plating, electro, 294 
Gilding, thread or fibre, 60 


Gillespie, Prof., on warped surfaces, 252 


Glaciers, theory of, 830 
Glass, plate, improvements in polish- 
ing and grinding, $1 


Globe, outline theory of the struct. of 870 


Glue, elastic, 102 
Glue, water-proof, 102 
Glycerine, artificial production of, 315 

ee solvent properties of, 310 


Gold, in the form of malleable sponge,286 
Gold, relation ef to light, VAT 
Gravity, direction of on the earth’s 

surface, ] 
Gravity, specific, estimation of, 2 
Great Britain, mineral productions of 


92 
eh) 


for 1856, 378 
Great Eastern Steamship, construc- 

ticn of, 2 
Gueno, product, curious, 303 


Gunpowder, improved method of 


manufacturing, oF 
Gutta-Percha, durability of, 104 
Haarlem Jake, effect of drainage on, 83 
Hal!oty pes, 231 
Hayes, Dr. A. A., 58, 295, 295, 808. 305 
Heat, development of in agitated 

water, iyi 
Heat, effect of on the color of dis- 

solved salts, £08 
Heat, on the nature of, 203 


Heat, radiant, influence of metals on, 205 
Heat, recent discoveries in relation to, 193 


118 


‘Helmholtz, M., on the interaction of 


natural forces, 


INDEX. 417 
i : PaGe. | PAGE. 
Hematite, production of, 295 ; Manuscripts, photo’phic fac similes of, 233 
Holmes, Dr. E. S., Corn-husking ma- Marble, imitation of (Venrhyn), 196 
chine 114| Measurement, standard for microme- 
Hopkins, Prof. W. R., 385! tric, 83 
Horometer, Abbot's, 255 | Measures, for mechanical engineering 
Human Remains, supposed fossil, 379} work, 82 
Hunt, T.S., 299 
Ice, curious phenomena of, 266 
aS plasticity of, 267 


118 
920, 321 
27 


Impossible Prebiems, 
Inks, new, preparation of, 
Inventions, recent French, 


Todine, crystalline form of, 271 
Tron and steel, hardening of, 70 
Iren, coating with copper, 76 
<6 66 “ glass, 75 
ee of «¢ with alloys, 76 
Tron, fracture of, 58 


Iron, malleable, improvement in the 


manufacture of, 73 
Tron, meteoric, fall of in South Amer- 

ica, 87 
Tron, native, of Liberia, eyis) 
Tron ordnance, strength of, 87 | 
Tron, targets, experiments on, 85 
Isothermal lines, simultaneous, 209 | 
Ivory, factitious, photographs on, 230 
Journal-boxes, improvement in, 
Kalotrope, the, 238 
Keel, Maskei’s sliding, 33 
Kelp, manufacture of [statistics], 105 
Lactic acid in vegetables, 835 
Lakes, of Eastern Asia, 859 
Lathe, Walton’s automatic, 112 
Leather, Artificial graining of, 105 
Leather, rendering water-proof, 101 


Lenses and reflectors, impr’ments in, 221 
Lenses, centering of, 22 
Lenses, convex, determining the focal 
- length of, 221 
Light, interference and refraction of, 211 
Light of suns, meteors, and tempo- 
rary stars, 214 
Light, recent discover’s in relation to, 210 
Light, relation of gold to, 217 
Light, solar, influence of upon com- 


bustion, 198 

‘- ) Zoqiacal, 492 
Lightning Conductor, new, 152 
Lizhtning, photographic effects of, 225 
Liquids, spheroidal state of, 204 
Liquors, ‘‘ Ageing,” 103 
Liguors, to prevent boiling over, 103 
Locomotives, coal-burning, 45 
Lecomotive, new form of, 47 
fs Prestage’s improved, 47 
London, excretory producis of, 345 


Longitude of Greenwich and Paris, 
determination of, 2 
Lunar and terestrial motions secular 


= 


variations of, 190 
Macle crystals, formation o- 298 
Magnesium, the metal, 279 


Macnetism, recent progress of terres- 
3 ns 2 
trial, 20, 173 
Manganese, metallic, preparation and 
properties of, 230 


Mercury, heat-conducting power of, 206 
Metal, experiments on the transmuta- 
tion of, 27 
Metals, change of position of the par- 
ticles of by percussion, 58 
Metals, influence of on radiant heat, 206 
Metals, preservative preparation for 
coating, 17 
Meteors, periodic, height of, 
Meter, feeding steam-boilers by, 
Micrometric measurement, standard 
for, 83 
Microscopic collection of Prof. Bailey, 385 
Military resources of France, 23 


Milk, artificial, 340 
Mississippi, bayous and delta of, 3850 
Mist, vesicular, theory of, 285 
Molten substances, on some phenom- 
ena in connection with, 276 
| Moon, has it an atmosphere ? 895 
Mortars, construction of 36 inch, 87 
Motion, perpetual, ' 142 


Mountains of N. Carolina, height of, 358 


| Nature printing, new system of, 93 
Nervous action, rapidity of, 251 

| Nitrogen, origin cf in vegetation, 3837 
410 


Oils, Fats, &c., improvement in the 
manufacture of, 3l4 

Oil, Linseed, new method of treating, 309 

Ophidian, new fossil, 376 

Opthalmoscope, the, 233 

Ordnance, introduction of heavy into 
the navy, 


| Obituary for 1857, 


e iron, strength of, 87 
Oreide, anew alloy, 295 
Ozone, observations of in Canada, 346 


Ozone, researches on the prod’tion of, 344 


Paper, rendering water-proof, 100, 19 
Paper, ** parchment,”’ 32 
Paper, Schonbein’s Electrical, 145 


Paramagnetic bodies, disposition of 


force in, 176 
Perfumes, improvement in the manu- 

facture of, 829 
Phosphorus, crystalline form of. 271 
Photo-galvanography, 229 
Photo-heliograph, 219 


Photographie fac similes of ancient 


manuscripts, 233 
| Photographic results, curious, 23% 
Photographs, Crayon, Ze 
Photographs for wood engraving, 228 
Photographs on factitious ivory, 23% 
Photography, miscellaneous impreve- 
ments in, 23 
Photographs of fixed stars, raf 
Photographs, transparent enamel, £22 
Physiological researches, interesting, 390 


Planets, new, discovered in 1857, 394 


| Plaster of Paris, method of hardening, 107 
Pocy, M. Andres, 226 
Portraits, Newell’s Photographic, 264 


418 INDEX. 
PAGE. | PaGE. 

Potash, bichromate, use of for pre- | Soundings, deep-sea, 379 

servative solutions, 344 | Sound, effect of wind on the intensity 
Potato, chemical properties of, 539 | of, 24 
Pretscu, M. process for engraving, 229 | Sounds produced by the combustion 
Printing, new system of nature, 93 of gases in tubes, 

a presses, improvement in, 98 


ae surfaces, improvement in 


Speculum, telescopic of silvered glass, 222 
3: 


Sphy gmoscope, 3 


preparing, 97 | Spinning, cotton, improvements in, 67 
Prism, use of in qualitative analysis, 212 | Stars, double, 400 
Problems, impossible, 118 | Stars, fixed, photographs of, 227-8 
Propellors, screw, 35 | Statistics of British manufactures 67 
Pulsation, experiments on, 240 | Steam and fire regulators, 51 
Pumping engines, 45, 46 | Steam on common roads, 389 

Steamer, large screw, 38 
Ray Society, proceedings of, 5 | Stearine and Oleine, production of, 3814 
Reflectors, improvements in, 221 | Steel, hardening of, 69 
Reguiators, steam and fire, 51 | Steel, new process for the manufac- 
Respiration a cause of circulation, 392] ture of, 292 
RITcHiez’s improved electrical appa- Stereoscopes, telescopic, 237 

ratus, 156 | Stone-work, prevention of decay in, 101 
Roads, steam Carriages on, 39 | Subsidence of coasts, 852 
Rocks, horizontal heave of, 359 | Sugar, grape, preparation of pure, 3827 
Rocks, Von Fuchs, on the formation Sugur of the sorghum, 30 

of the primitive, 300 | Sugar, Oxland’s method of refining, 334 
Russian Geographical Explorations, 14/{ Sulphur, different conditions of, 271 
Rust spots, removal of trom white Sulphurium, 271 

linen, 317 | Summator, Jones’s, 81 

Sun, actinic power of, experiments on 211 
Salt, function of, in agriculture, 337 | Sun and earth, central relations of, 36 
Salt, improvements in the manufac- Sun-dial, new, movable horizontal, 2386 

ture of, 109 | Sun, observations on, 397 
Salt, rock, observations on, 302 | Surfaces, warped, of ground, on the 
Salts,statisticsof manufactureinU.S, 107| estimation of, 262 
Salts, color of in soiution, 217 
Salts, observations on the solubility Tallow and soapworks, prevention 

of, 3800| of nuisances arising from, 815 
Sanatary studies, importance of, 116 | Tannin, action of upon the skin, 327 
Sandstones, new red of the Atlantic Tanning, improvements in, 104 

states, 373 | Targets, iron, experiments on, 86 
Sandstones of the Connecticut River Telegraph, House’s, improvement on 162 

Valley, 3875 | Telegraph, magnetic, anticipation of 
Sapphires, artificial, 291] the discovery of, 163 
Saturn’s Rings, stability of, 394 | Telegraph, Submarine Atlantic, 164 
Science and commerce, union be- Telegraphic memoranda, 162 

tween, 21] Telegraphic purposes, application of 
Screw-propellors, construction of, 35 | steam to, 163 
Sea-level, existence of forces capable Telescope for the Paris observatory 337 

of changing, 357 | Telescopic speculum of silvered glass, 222 
Sea-water, existence of copper in, 276 | Temperature of the ocean bottom, 379 

se a silver + 274 | Thermoheliostat, 119 
Seeds, vitality of, 3884 | Thermometric apparatus, improve- 
Selenium, crystalline form of, 271| ment in, 207 
Sexes, production of at will, 388 | Thought, measurement of the rapid- 
Shells, fresh-water, corrosion of, 347 | _ ity of, 251 
Shutters, fire-place, 53 | Thunder storms, contributions to our 
Silicates, alkaline, formation of, 299| knowledge of, 256 
Silicification, process of, 805 | Tidal action, influence of on lunar 
Silicium, and the metallic siliciurets, 285 | and terrestrial motion, 190 
ee new oxide of, 286 | Tides, observations on, 199 
Silurian system, the, 358 | Time, establishment of uniform, by 
Silver, in sea-water 274| means of the telegraph, 252 
Silver, new alloy of, 295 | Transmutation of metals, experi- 
Skin, action of tannin upon, 827 | ments on, 270 
Skin ‘*‘ bronzed,” 3892 | Trees, contrivance for transplanting, 111 
Smoke, arrangement for the con- Trees, machines for felling, 114 

sumption of, 53 | Trees, mammoth of California, 8385 
Social Science, British Association Tripod, Cavendy’s nautical, 256 

for promotion of, 115 | Tubes for couplings, 17 
Solids, crystalline, molecular aggre- Tungsten and its compounds, 282 

gation of, 263 ** chemical character of, 284 
Sorgho, coloring matter from, 334 | Type, improved alloy for, 78 


Pac 
Urea, a source of nitrogen in vegeta- 


tion 


’ : . . 
Urea, origin of in the animal econo- 


INDEX. 419 
E. i Pact. 
Water-proofing of fabrics, &c., 99, 100 


my, 
Varnish, new gold, 102 
Vaughan, Daniel, 190, 214 
Veneers, Embossed, 112 
Vermin, destruction of by anesthetic 

agents, 828 
Vessel, novel, BY 
Vibrations, influence of on metals, 58 
Vibrations, on the optical study of, 247 
Volcanoes, gaseous products of, 301 
Voltaic Vile, theory of, 152 
Walls and ceilings, deadening, 84 
Water, development of heat in, by 

agitation, 197 
Water, metre, Jopling’s improved, 92 


Water, vibrations occasioned by fall- 


ing, 250 
Waters of artesian wells, 
| Wave principle, as applied to the 
| Great Eastern Steamer, , al 
| Whalebone, artiticial, 105 
Wheat, preservation of, lil 


Wheat-flour and bread, composition 


|__of, BY 
Whirlwinds and Tornadoes, spirality 
of motion in, 260 
| Whistle, automatic-steam, 48 
7, Wind, on the direction of, 269 
| Wines, chemistry of, 312 
| WINSLow, Dr. C. F. 386 
WISE, JOHN, on thunder storms, 256 
Writing, Chemical, 1-2 


Zodiacal Light, 


| ere 
slic’ $4} : 


wy 
por 
rasviiakghh the 
| se , me 

7 oe 

ene, ase 


? 


IMPORTANT 
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC WORKS 


PUBLISHED BY 


GOULD AND LENGCODN, 


59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY ; or, Year Book of Facts 


in Science and Art, exhibiting the most important Discoveries and Improvements in 
Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Meteorology, 
Zodlogy, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, Antiquities, etc. ; together with a list 
of recent Scientific Publications, a classified list of Patents, Obituaries of eminent Scien- 
tific Men, an Index of important Papers in Scientific Journals, Reports, &c. Edited by 
DAviIpD A. WELLS, A.M. 12mo, cloth, 1,25 


This work, commenced in the year 1850, and issued on the first of March annually, contains all 
important facts discovered or announced during the year. Each volume is distinct in itself, and con- 
tains entirely new matter, with a fine portrait of some distinguished scientific man. As it is not in- 
tended exclusively for scientific men, but to meet the wants of the general reader, it has been the aim 
of the editor that the articles should be brief, and intelligible to all. The editor has received the appro- 
bation, counsel, and personal contributions of the prominent scientific men throughout the country. 


THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR;; or, The Asterolepis of 


Stromness. With numerous Illustrations. By HUGH MILLER, author of “ The Old Red 
Sandstone,” &c. From the third London Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by 
LouIs AGASSIZ. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 


Dr. BUCKLAND, at a meeting of the British Association, said he had never been so much aston- 
Ished in his life, by the powers of any men, as he had been by the geological descriptions of Mr. Miller. 
That wonderful man described these objects with a facility which made him ashamed of the com- 
parative meagreress and poverty of his own descriptions in the “ Bridgewater Treatise,” which had 
cost him hours and days of labor. He would give his left hand to possess such powers of description 
as this man ; and if it pleased Providence to spare his useful life, he, if any one, would certainly ren- 
der science attractive and popular, and do equal service to theology and geology. 


Mr. Miller’s style is remarkably pleasing; his mode of popularizing geological knowledge unsur~ 
passed, perhaps unequalled; and the deep reverence for divine revelation pervading all adds inter, 
est and value to the volume. — V. ¥. Com. Advertiser. 


The publishers have again covered themselves with honor, by giving to the American public, with 
the author’s permission, an elegant reprint of a foreign work of science. We earnestly bespeak for 


this work a wide and free circulation among all who love science much and religion more.— Puri- 
tan Recorder. 


THE OLD RED SANDSTONE; or, New Walks in an Uld Field. By 


HuGH MILLER. Illustrated with Plates and Geological Sections. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 


Mr. Miller’s exceedingly interesting book on this formation is just the sort of work to render any 


subject popular. It is written ina remarkably pleasing style, and contains a wonderful amount of 
information. — Westminster Review. 


It is, withal, one of the most beautiful specimens of English composition to be found, conveying 
Information on a most difficult and prefound science, in a style at once novel, pleasing, and elegant. 
It eontains the results of twenty years’ close observation and experiment, resulting in an accumulation 
of facts which not only dissipate some dark and knotty old theories with regard to ancient formations, 
but establish the great truths of geology in more perfect and harmonious consistency with the great 
truths of revelation. — Albany Spectator, A 


VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS. 


A TREATISE ON THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE 


Animal Kingdom. By Profs. C. TH. VON SIEBOLD and H. STANNIvsS. Translated 
from the German, with Notes, Additions, &c., By WALDO J. BURNETT, M. D., Boston. 
One volume octavo,cloth. 3,00. 


This is unquestionably the best and most complete work of its class yet published; and its appear- 
ance in an English dress, with the corrections, improvements, additions, etc., of the American Editor, 
will no doubt be welcomed by the men of science in this country and in Europe, from whence or- 
Gers for supplies of the work have been received. 


THE POETRY OF SCIENCE; or, the Physical Phenomena of Nature. 


By ROBERT Hunt, Author of‘ Panthea,” ‘* Researches of Light,’’ &c. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 


We are heartily glad to see this interesting work republished in America. It isa book that tsa 
pook. — Scientific American. 


It is one of the most readable, interesting, and instructive works of the kind that we have ever 
seen. — Phil. Christiun Observer. 


THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPECIES: its Typical Forms 


and Primeval Distribution. By CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH. With an Introduction, 
containing an Abstract of the Views of Blumenbach, Prichard, Bachman, Agassiz, and 
other writers of repute. By SAMUEL KNEELAND, JR., M.D. With elegant flustra. 
tions. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. : 


The history of the species is thoroughly considered by Colonel Smith, with regard to its origin, 
typical forms, distribution, filiations, &c. The marks of practical good sense, careful observation, 
and deep research are displayed in every page. An intreductory essay of some seventy or eighty 
pages forms a valuable addition to the work. It comprises an abstract of the opinions advocated by 
the mo*t eminent writers on the subject. The statements are made with strict impartiality, and, 
without a comment, left to the judgment of the reader. — Sartain'’s Magazine. 


This work exhibits great research, as well as an evident taste and talent, on the part of the author, 
for the study of the history of man, upon zoological principles. It is a book of learning, and full of 
interest,and may be regarded as among the comparatively few real contributions to science, that 
serve to redeem, in some measure, the mass of useless stuff under which the press groans.— Chris. 
Witness. 


This book is characterized by more curious and interesting research than any one that has recently 
come under our examination. — Albany Journal and Register. 


It contains a learned and thorough treatment of an important subject, always interesting, and of 
late attracting more than usual attention. — Ch. Register. 


The volume before us is one of the best of the publishers’ series of publications, replete with rare 
and valuable information, presented in a style at once ciear and entertaining, illustrated in the mest 
copious manner with plates of all the various forms of the human race, tracing with the most minute 
precision analogies and resemblances, and hence origin. The more it is read, the more widely opens 
this field of research before the mind, again and again to be returned to, with fresh zest and satisfac~ 
tion. It is the result of the researches, collections, and labors of a long and valuable lifetime, present- 
ed in the most popular form imaginable. — Albany Spectator. 


LAKE SUPERIOR: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals, 


compared with those of other and similar regions. By L. AGASSIZ, and Contributions 
from other eminent Scientific Gentlemen. With a Narrative of the Expedition, and 
Illustrations. By J.E.CABoT. One volume, octavo, elegantly illustrated. Cloth, 3,50. 


The illustrations, seventeen in number, are in the finest stvle of the art, by Sonrel; embracing 
lake and landscape scenery, fishes, and other objects of natural history, with an outline map of Lake 
Superior. 

This work is one of the most valuable scientific works thathas appeared in this country. Embody- 
ing the researches of our best scientific men relating to a hitherto comparatively unknowy region, 
it will be found to contain a great amount of scientific information. B 


GUYOT Sit WO RAGS. 


THE EARTH AND MAN: Lectures on COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL 


GEOGRAPHY, in its relation to the History of Mankind. By Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT. 
Translated from the French, by Prof. C. C. FELTON, with numerous Illustrations. 
Eighth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 


From Prof. Louis Agassiz, of Harvard University. 

It will not only render the study of Geography more attractive, 5ut actually show it in its true light, 
namely, as the science of the relations which exist between nature and man throughout history ; of 
the contrasts observed between the different parts of the globe; of the laws of horizontal and vertical 
forms of the dry land, in its contact with the sea; of climate, &e. It would be highly serviceable, it 
seems to me. for the benefit of schools and teachers, that you should induce Mr. Guyot to write a se- 
ries of graduated text books of geography, from the first elements up to a scientific treatise. It would 
give new life to these studies in this country, and be the best preparation for sound statistical investi- 
gations. 

From George S. Hitlard. Esq., of Boston. 

Professor Guyot’s Lectures are marked by learning, ability, and taste. His bold and comprehen- 
sive generalizations rest upon a careful foundation of facts. The essential value of his statements is 
enhanced by his luminous arrangement, and by a vein of philosophical reflection which gives life and 
dignity to dry details. To teachers of youth it will be especially important. They may learn from it 
how to make Geography, which I recall as the least interesting of studies, one of the most attractive; 
and I earnestly commend it to their careful consideration. 


Those who have been accustomed to regard Geography as a merely descriptive branch of learn- 
ing, drier than the remainder biscuit after a voyage, will be delighted to find this hitherto unattractive 
pursuit converted into a science, the principles of which are definite and the results conclusive.— 
North American Review. 


The grand idea of the work is happily expressed by the aut .or, where he calls it the geographical 
march of history. Faith, science, learning, poetry, taste, in a word, genius, have liberally contributed 
to the production of the work under review Sometimes we feel as if we were studying a treatise on 
the exact sciences; at others, it strikes the ear like an epic poem. Now it reads like history, and now 
it sounds like prophecy. It will find readers in whatever language it may be published. — Chrwstian 
Exuniner. 


The work is one of high merit, exhibiting a wide range of knowledge, great research, and a philo- 
sophical spirit of investigation. Its perusal will well repay the most learned in such subjects, and 
give new views to all of man’s relation to the globe he inhabits. ~ Silluman’s Journal. 


COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; 


or. the Study of the Earth and its Inhabitants. A series of graduated courses for the use 
of Schools. By ARNOLD GUYOT, author of ** Earth and Man,” etc. 


The series hereby announced will consist of three courses, adapted to the capacity of three different 
ages and periods of study. The first is intended for primary schools and for children of from seven 
to ten years. The second is adapted for higher schools, and for young persons of from ten to fifteen 
years. The third is to be used as a scientific manual in Academies and Colleges. 

Each course will be divided into two parts, one on purely Physical Geography, the other for Eth- 
nography, Statistics, Political and Historical Geography. Each part will be illustrated by a colored 
Physical and Political Atlas, prepared expressly for this purpose, delineating, with the greatest care, 
the configuration of the surface, and the other physical phenomena alluded to in the corresponding 
work, the distribution of the races of men, and the political divisions into states, &c., &c. 


The two parts of the first or preparatory course are now in a forward state of preparation, and will 
be issued at an early day. 


GUYOT’S MURAL MAPS; a Series of elegant Colored Maps, projected 
on a large scale, for the Recitation Room, consisting of a Map of the World, North and 
South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, &c., exhibiting the Physical Phenomena of the 
Globe, etc. By Prof. ARNOLD GuYOT. Price, mounted, 10,00 each. 


MAP OF THE WORLD, -— Now ready. 
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, — Now ready. 
MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA, — Nearly ready. 


MAP OF GEOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS, — Now ready. 
Os Other Maps of the Series are tn preparation. Cc 


VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS. 


PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY: touching the Structure, Development, 


Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, living and extinct. 
With numerous Illustrations. For the Use of Schools and Colleges. Part I1., COMPARA- 
TIVE PHYSIOLOGY. By LOUIS AGASSIZ and AUGUSTUS A. GOULD. Revised 
Edition. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 


This work places us in possession of information half a century in advance of all our elementary 
works on this subject. . . No work of the same dimensions has ever appeared in the English lan- 
guage containing so much new and valuable information on the subject of which it treats. — Pror. 
JAMES HALL. 


A work emanating from so high a source hardly requires commendation to give it currency. The 
yolume is prepared for the student in zoological science; it is simple and elementary in its style, full 
in its illustrations, comprehensive in its range, yet well condensed, and brought into the narrow com- 
pass requisite for the purpose intended. — Silliman’s Journal. 


The work may safely be recommended as the best book of the kind in our language. -— Christian 
Examiner. 


- Itis nota mere book, but a work — areal work, in the form of a book. Zoology is an interesting 
science, and is here treated with a masterly hand. The history, anatomical structure, the nature and 
habits of numberless animals, are described in clear and plain language, and illustrated with innumer 
able engravings. It is a work adapted to colleges and schools, and no young man should be without 
it. — Scientific American. 


PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY, PART II. Systematic Zoology, in 


which the Principles of Classification are applied, and the principal Groups of Animals 
are Lriefly characterized. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo, in preparation. 


THE ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY; adapted to Schools and Colleges, 


with numerous Illustrations. By J. R. Loomis, late Professor of Chemistry and Geology 
in Waterville College. 12mo, cloth, 75. 


After a thorough examination of the work, we feel convinced that in all the requirements of a text 
book of natural science, it is surpassed by no work before the American public. In this opinion we 
believe the great body of experienced teachers will conenr. The work will be found equally well 
adapted to the wants of those who have given little or no attention to the science in early life, and are 
desirous to become acquainted with its terms and principles, with the least consumption of time and 
labor. We hope that every teacher among our readers will examine the work and put the justness 
of our remarks to the test of his judgment and experience. — M. B. ANDERSON, Pres. af Iochester 
University. 


This is just such a work as is needed for our schools. It contains a systematic statement of the 
principles of Geology, without entering into the minuteness of detail, which, though interesting to the 
mature student, confuses the learner. It very wisely, also, avoids those controyerted points which 
mingle geology with questions of biblical criticism. We see no reason why it should not take its 
Pace as a text book in all the schools in the land. -- W. Y. Observer. 


This volume merits the attention of teachers, who, if we mistake not, will find it better adapted to 
their purpose than any other similar work of which we have knowledge. It embodies a statement 
o{ the principles of Geology sufficiently full for the ordinary purposes of instruction, with the leading 
facts from which they are deduced. It embraces the latest results of the science, and indicates the 
debatable points of theoretical geology. The plan of the work is simple and clear, and the style in 
which it is written is both compact and lucid. We have special pleasure in welcoming its appearance. 
— Watchman and Reflector. 


This volume seems to be just the book now required on geology. It will acauire rapidly a circula- 
tion, and will do much to popularize and universally diffuse a knowledge of geological truths. — Al- 
bany Journal. 


It gives a clear and scientific, yet simple, analysis of the main features of the science. It seems, in 
language and illustration, admirably adapted for use as a text book in common schvols and academies; 
while it is vastly better than any thing which was used in college in our time. In all these capacities 
We particularly and cordially recommend it. — Congregationalist, Boston. D 


CHAMBERS’S WORKS. 


CHAMBERS’S CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, A 


Selection of the choicest productions of English Authors, from the earliest to the present 
time. Connected by a Critical and Biographical History. Forming two large imperial 
octavo volumes of 1400 pages, double column letter-press ; with upwards of 300 elegant 
Illustrations. Edited by ROBERT CHAMBERS, embossed cloth, 5,00. 


This work embraces about one thousand authors, chronologically arranged and classed as Poets, 
Historians, Dramatists, Philosophers, Metaphysicians, Divines, etc., with choice selections from their 
writings, connected by a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Narrative; thus presenting a complete 
view of English literature from the earliest to the present time. Let the reader open where he will, 
he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight. The selections are gems —infinite riches ina 
little room; in the language of another, “A WHOLE ENGLISH LIBRARY FUSED DOWN INTO ONE 
CHEAP BOOK:” 


Frou W. H. Prescorr. AUTHOR OF * FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.’’ The plan of the work is 
very judicious. - It will put the reader in a proper point of view for surveying the whole ground 
over which he is travelling. . . . Such readers cannot fail to profit largely by the labors of the critic 
who has the talent and taste to separate what is really beautiful and worthy of their study from what 
is superfluous. 

I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr, Prescott. -EpWARD EVERETT. 

A popular work, indispensable to the library of a student of English literature. —Dr. WAYLAND. 


We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this work. — North American Review. 


It has been fitly described as * a whole English library fused down into one cheap book.” The Bos- 
ton edition combines neatness with cheapness, engraved portraits being given, over and above the il- 
lustrations of the English copy. — WV. ¥. Commercial Advertiser. 


Welcome: more than welcome’ It was our good fortune some months ago to obtain a glance at this 
work, and we have ever since looked with earnestness for its appearance in an American edition. — 
NV. Y. Recorder. 


cs The American edition of this valuable work is enriched by the addition of fine steel and mezzo- 
tint engravings of the heads of SHAKSPEARE, ADDISON, Byron; a full length portrait of Dr. JOHN- 
SON, and a beautiful scenic representation of OLIVER GOLDSMITH and DR. JOHNSON. These im- 
portant and elegant additions, together with superior paper and binding, render the American far su- 
perior to the English edition. The circulation of this most ya!uable and popular work has been truly 
enormous, and its sale in this country still continues unabated. 


CHAMBERS’S MISCELLANY OF USEFUL AND ENTERTAIN- 
ING KNOWLEDGE. Edited by WILLIAM CHAMBERS. With Elegant [llustrative 
Engravings. Ten volumes, 16mo, cloth, 7,50; cloth, gilt back, 10.00. 


This work has been highly recommended by distinguished individuals, as admirably adapted te 
Family, Sabbath, and District School Libraries. 


It would be difficult to find any miscellany superior or even equal to it: it richly deserves the epi- 
thets “ useful and entertaining,’ and I would recommend it very strongly as extremely well adapted 
to form parts of a library for the young, or of a social or circulating library in town or country.— 
GeorGce B. Emerson, Esq., CHAIRMAN BostoN SCHOOL Book COMMITTEE. 


I am gratified to have an opportunity to be instrumental in circulating “ Chambers’s Miscellany * 
among the schools for which I am superintendent. —J. J. Chute, Town. Sup. of Castleton, N. Y. 


Iam fully satisfied that it is one of the best series in our common school libraries now in circula~ 
tion. ~ S. T. Hance, Town Sup. of Macedon, Wayne Co., N. Y. 


The trustees have examined the “ Miscellany,” and are well pleased with it. I have engaged the 
books to every district that has library money.— MiLes CuaFrree, Town Sup. of Concord. N. Y. 


Iam not acquainted with any similar collection in the English language that can compare with it 
for purposes of instruction or amusement. I should rejoice to see that set of books in every house in 
gur country. — Rey. Jonn O. CuocLes D.D. 


‘ 
The information contained in this work is surprisingly great; and for the fireside, and the young, 
particularly, it cannot fail to prove a most valuable and entertaining companion. —.V. ¥. Evangelist. 


It isan admirable compilation, distinguished by the good taste which has been shown in all the pubs 
lications of the Messrs. Chambers. It unites the useful and entertaining. — V. ¥. Com. Adv. 
E 


CHAMBERS’S WORKS. 


——_ 


CHAMBERS’S HOME BOOK AND POCKET MISCELLANY. Cen- 


taining a Choice Selection of Interesting and Instructive Reading for the Old and the 
Young. Six vols. J6mo, cloth, 3,00. 


This work is considered fully equal, if not superior, to either of the Chambers’s other works in in- 
terest, and. like them, contains a vast fund of valuable mformation. Following somewhat the plan 
of the “ Miscellany,’ it is admirably adapted to the school or the family library, furnishing ample va- 
riety for every class of readers, both old and young. 


We do not know how it is possible to publish so much good reading matter at such a low price. 
We speak a good word for the literary excellence of the stories in this work ; we hope our people wil 
introduce it into all their families in order to drive away the miserable flashy-trashy stuff so often 
found in the hands of our young people of both sexes. — Scientific American. 


Both an entertaining and instructive work, as it is certainly a very cheap one. -- Puritan Recorder. 
It cannot but have an extensive circulation. — Albany Express. 


Excellent stories from one of the best sources in the world. Of all the series of cheap books, this 
promises to be the best. —- Bangor Mercury. 


If any person wishes to read for amusement or profit, to kill time or improve it, get “ Chambers’s 
Home Book.” — Chicago Times, 


The Chambers are confessedly the best caterers for popular and useful reading in the world. — 
Willis’s Home Journal. 


A very entertaining, instructive, and popular work.— NV. Y. Commercial. 


The articles are of that attractive sort which suits us in moods of indolence, when we would linger 
half way between wakefulness and sleep. They require just thought and activity enough to keep our 
feet from the land of Nod, without forcing us to run, walk, or even stand. — Eclectic, Portland. 


The reading contained in these books is of a miscellaneous character, calculated to have the very 
best effect upon the minds of young readers. While the contents are very far from being puerile, they 
are not too heavy, but most admirably calculated for the object intended. — Evening Gazette. 


Coming from the source they do, we need not say that the articles are of the highest literary excel 
lence. We predict for the work a large sale and a host of admirers. — East Boston Ledger. 


It is just the thing to amuse a leisure hour, and at the same time combines mstruction with amuse- 
ment. — Dover Inquirer. 


Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, have become famous wherever the English language 1s spoken 
and read, for their interesting and instructive publications. We have never yet met with any thing 
which bore the sanction of their names, whose moral tendency was in the least degree questionable. 
They combine instruction with amusement, and throughout they breathe a spirit of the purest moral- 
ity. — Chicago Tribune. 


CHAMBERS’S REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING 


PAPERS. With Illustrations. An entirely New Series, and containing Original Artic 
cles. 16mo, cloth, per vol. 50 cents. 


The Messrs. Chambers have recently commenced the publication of this work, under the title of 
“CHAMBERS’S REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING TRACTS,” in the form of penny 
weekly sheets, similar in style, literary character, &c., to the “ Miscellany,” which has maintained an 
enormous circulation of more than eighty thousand copies in England, and has already reached nearly 
the same sale in this country. 

Arrangements have been made by the American publishers, by which they will issue the work 
simultaneously with the English edition, in two monthly, handsomely bound, 16mo. volumes, of 260 
pages each, to continue until the whole series is completed. Each volume complete in itself, and will 
be sold in sets or single volumes. 


ea- Commendatory Letters, Reviews, Notices, &c., of each of Chambers’s works. sufficient to maks 
a good sized duodecimo volume, have been received by the publishers, but room here will only allow 
giving a specimen of the vast multitude at hand. They are all popular. and contain valuable instruc- 
tive and entertaining reading — such as should be found in every family, school, and college library. 


F 


VALUABLE WORK. 


CYCLOPZDIA OF ANECDOTES OF LITERATURE AND THE 


FINE ARTS. Containing a copious and choice selection of Anecdotes of the various 
forms of Literature, of the Arts, of Architecture, Engravings, Music, Poetry, Painting, 
and Sculpture, and of the most celebrated Literary Characters and Artists of different 
Countries and Ages,&c. By KAZLITT ARVINE, A. M., Author of ‘* Cyclopedia of Moral 
and Religious Anecdotes.’? With numerous illustrations. 725 pages octavo, cloth, 3,00. 


This is unquestionably the choicest collection of anecdotes ever published. It contains three thou- 
sand and forty Anecdotes, many of them articles of interest, containing reading matter equal to halfa 
dozen pages of 2 common 12mo. volume; and such is the wonderful variety, that it will be found an 
almost inexhaustible fund of interest for every class of readers. The elaborate classification and in- 
dexes must commend it, especially to public speakers, to the various classes of literary and scientifie 
men, to artists, mechanics, and others, as a DICTIONARY, for reference, in relation to facts on the nume- 
berless subjects and characters introduced. There are also more than one hundred and fifty fine 
Illustrations. 


We know of no work which in the same space comprises so much valuable information in a form 
so entertaining, and so well adapted to make an indelible impression upon the mind. It must become 
u standard work, and be ranked among the few books which are indispensable to every complete 
library. — NV. ¥. Chronicle. 


Here is a perfect repository of the most choice and approved specimens of this species of informa- 
tion, selected with the greatest care from all sources, ancientand modern. The work is replete with 
such entertainment as is adapted to all grades of readers, the most or least intellectual. — Methodist 
Quarterly Mag&zine. 


One of the most complete things of the kind ever given to the public. There is scarcely a paragraph 
in the whole book which will not interest some one deeply ; for, while men of letters, argument, and 
art cannot afford to do without its immense fund of sound maxims, pungent wit, apt illustrations, and 
brilliant examples, the merchant, mechanic and laborer will find it one of the choicest companions of 
the hours of relaxation. ‘‘ Whatever be the mood of one’s mind, and however limited the time for 
reading, in the almost endless variety and great brevity of the articles he can find something to suit 
his feeliags, which he can begin and end at once. It may also be made the very life of the social circle, 
containing pleasant reading for all ages, at all times and seasons. — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. 


A well spring of entertainment, to be drawn from at any moment, comprising the choicest anecdotes 
of distinguished men, from the remotest period to the present time.— Bangor Whig. 


A inagnificent collection of anecdotes touching literature and the fine arts. — Albany Spectator. 


This work, which is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of anecdotes ever published, 
cannot fail to become highly popular. — Salem Gazette. 


A publication of which there is little danger of speaking in too flattering terms ; a perfect Thesaurus 
of rare and curious information, carefully selected and methodically arranged. A jewel of a book to 
lie on one’s table, to snatch up in those brief moments of leisure that could not be very profitably 
turned to account by recourse to any connected work in any department of literature. — Zroy Budget. 


No fumily ought to be without it, for it is at once cheap, valuable, and very interesting ; containing 
matter compiled from all kinds of books, from all quarters of the globe, from all ages of the world, and 
in relation to every corporeal matter at all worthy of being remarked or remembered. No work has 
been issued from the press for a number of years for which there was such a manifest want, and we 
are certain it only needs to be known to meet with an immense-sale. — Vew Jersey Union. 


A well-pointed anecdote is often useful to illustrate an argument, and a memory well stored with per- 
sonal incidents enables the possessor to entertain lively and agreeable conversation. — V. Y. Com. 


A rich treasury of thought, and wit, and learning, illustrating the characteristics and peculiarities or 
many of the most distinguished names in the history of literature and the arts. — Phil. Chris. Obs. 


The range of topics is very wide, relating to nature, religion, science, and art; furnishing apposite 
illustrations for the preacher, the orator, the Sabbath school teacher, and the instructors of our com- 
mor, schools, academies, and colleges. It must prove a valuable work for the fireside, as well as for 
the library, as it is calculated to please and edify all classes. — Zanesville Ch. Register. 


Ths is one of the most entertaining works for desultory reading we have seen, and will no douht 
have a very extensive circulation. Asa most entertaining table book, we hardly know of any thing 
et once so instructive and amusing. — V. Y. Ch. Intelligencer. G 


4 


THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES. 


So Classified and Arranged as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas, and Assist 
in Literary Composition. By PETER Marx RoGet, late Secretary of the Royal 
Society, and author of the ‘‘ Bridgewater Treatise,” etc. Revised and En- 
larged; with a List oF ForREIGN WorpDS AND EXPRESSIONS most frequently 
occurring in works of general Literature, Defined in English, by Barnas 
Sgars, D. D., Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, assisted by 
several Literary Gentlemen. 12mo., cloth. $1.80. 


#a5> A work of great merit, admirably adapted as a text-book for schools and colleges, and 


ef high importance to every American scholar. Among the numerous commendations re- 
ceived from the press, in all directions, the publishers would call attention to the following: 


Weare glad to see the Thesaurus of English Words republished in this country. It is a most 
valuable work, giving the results of many years’ labor, in an attempt to classify and arrange 
the words of the English tongue, so as to facilitate the practice of composition. The purpose 
of an ordinary dictionary is to explain the meaning of words, while the object of this Thesaurus 
is to collate all the words by which any given idea may be expressed. — Putnam’s Monthly. 


This volume offers the student of English composition the results of great labor in the form 
of a rich and copious vocabulary. We would commend the work to those who have charge 
of academies and high schools, and to all students. — Christian Observer. 


This is a novel publication, and is the first and only one of the kind ever issued in which 
words and phrases of our language are classified, not according to the sound of their orthog- 
raphy, but strictly according to their signification. It will become an invaluable aid in the 
communication of our thoughts, whether spoken or written, and hence, as a means of improve- 
ment, we can recommend it as a work of rare and excellent qualities. — Scientific American. 


A work of great utility. It will give a writer the word he wants, when that word is on the 
tip of his tongue, but altogether beyond his reach. — 1. Y. Times. 


Itis more complete than the English work, which has attained a just celebrity. It is intended 
to supply, with respect to the English language, a desideratum hitherto unsupplied in any 
language, namely, a collection of the words it contains, and of the idiomatic combinations 
peculiar to it, arranged, not in alphabetical order, as they are in a dictionary, but according to 
the zdeas which they express. The purpose of a dictionary is simply to explain the meaning 
of words — the word being given, to find its signification, or the idea it is intended to convey. 
The object aimed at here is exactly the converse of this: the idea being given, to find the word 
or words by which that idea may be mostly fitly and aptly expressed. For this purpose, tho 

words and phrases of the language are here classed, not according to their sound or their 
orthography, but strictly according to their signification. — New York Evening Mirror. 


An invaluable companion to persons engaged in literary labors. To persons who are not 
familiar with foreign tongues, the catalogue of foreign words and phrases most current in 
modern literature, which the American editor has appended, will be very useful. —Presbyterian. 


It casts the whole English language into groups of words and terms, arranged in such a 
manner that the student of English composition, when embarrassed by the poverty of his 
vocabulary, may supply himself immediately, on consulting it, with the precise term for 
which he has occasion. — New York Evening Post. 


This is a work not merely of extraordinary, but of peculiar value. We would gladly praise 
it, if any thing could add to the consideration held out by the title page. No one who speaks 
or writes for the public need be urged to study Roget’s Thesaurus. — Star of the West. 


Every writer and speaker ought to possess himself at once of this manual. It is far from 
being a mere dull, dead string of synonymes, but it is enlivened and vivified by the classifying 
and crystallizing power of genuine philosophy. We have put it on our table as a permanent 
fixture, as near our left hand as the Bible is to our right. — Congregationalist. 


This book is one of the most valuable we ever examined. It supplies a want long acknowl- 
edged by the best writers, and supplies it completely. — Poriland Advertiser. 


One of the most efficient aids to composition that research, industry, and scholarship have 
ever produced. Its object is to supply the writer or speaker with the most felicitous terms 
for expressing an idea that may be vaguely floating on his mind; and, indeed, through the 
peculiar manner of arrangement, ideas themselyes may be expanded or modified by reference 
to Mr. Roget’s elucidations. — Albion, N. Y. - (@) 


NEW AND VALUABLE WORKS. 
MENTAL PHILOSOPHY; 


INCLUDING THE INTELLECT, THE SENSIBILITIES, AND THE WILL. By JOSEPH 
HAVEN, PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, AMHERST 
CoLLEGE. Royal 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 


The need of a new text-book on Mental Philosophy has long been felt and acknowledged by etni- 
nent teachers in this department. While many of the books in use are admitted to possess gr2at 
merits in some respects, none has been found altogether satisfactory As A TEXT-BOOK. The author 
of this work, having learned by his own experience as a teacher of the science in one of our most 
flourishing colleges what was most to be desired, has here undertaken to supply the want. How far 
he has succeeded, those occupying similar educational positions are best fitted tojudge. In now sub- 
mitting the work to their candid judgment, and to that of the public at large, particular attention is 
invited to the following characteristics, by which it is believed to be pre-eminently distinguished. 


1. The COMPLETENESS with which it presents the whole subject. Some text-books treat of only 
one class of faculties, the Intellect, for example, omitting the Sensibilities and the Will. This work 
includes the whole. The author knows of no reason why Moral Philsophy should not treat of the 
WHOLE mind in all its faculties. 


2. Itis strictly and thoroughly scE1nTIFIC. The author has aimed to make a science of the mind, 
not merely a series ef essays on certain faculties, like those of Stewart and Reid. 


8. It presents a careful ANALYSIS of the mind as a whole, with a view to ascertain its several facul- 
ties. This point, which has been greatly overlooked by writers on mental science, Prof. Haven has 
made a speciality. It has cost him immense study to satisfy himself in obtaining a true result. 


4. The HISTORY AND LITERATURE Of each topic are made the subject of special attention. While 
some treatises are wholly deficient in this respect, others, as that of Stewart, so intermingle literary 
and critical disquisition, as seriously to interfere with the scientific statement of the topic in hand. 
Prof. Haven, on the contrary, has traced the history of each important branch of the science, and 
thrown the result into a separate section at the close. This feature is regarded as wholly original. 


5. It presents the LATEST RRSULTS of the science, especially the discoveries of Sir William Ham- 
ilton in relation to the doctrines of Perception and of Logic. On both of these subjects the work is 
Hamiltonian. ‘The value of this feature will best be estimated by those who know how difficult of 
access the Hamiltonian philosophy has hitherto been. No American writer before Prof. Haven has 
presented any adequate or just account of Sir William's theory of perception and of reasoning. 

6. The author has aimed to present the subject in an ATTRACTIVE STYLE, consistently with a 
thorough scientific treatment. He has proceeded on the ground that a due combination of the POETIC 
element with the scientific would effect a great improvement in philosophic composition. Perspicuity 
and precision, at least, will be found to be marked features of his style. 

7. The author has studied CONDENSATION. Some of the works in use are exceedingly diffuse. 
Prof. Haven has compressed into one volume what by other writers has been spread over three or 
four. Both the pecuniary and the intellectual advantages of this condensation are obvious. 

Prof. Park, of Andover, having examined a large portion of the work in manuscript, says, “ Itis 
DISTINGUISHED for its clearness of style, perspicuity of method, candor of spirit, acumen and 
comprehensiveness of thought. Ihave been heartily interested in it.” 


THE WITNESS OF GOD; or The Natural Evidence of His Being and 


Perfections, as the Creator and Governor of the World, and the presumptions 
which it affords in favor of a Supernatural Revelation of His Will. By JAMES 
BucHanan, D. D., LL.D., Divinity Professor in the New College, Edinburgh; 
author of ** Modern Atheism,’ etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. In press. 


GOTTHOLD’S EMBLEMS; or, Invisible things understood by things 
that aremade. By CHRISTIAN ScCRIVER, Minister of Magdeburg in 1671. Trans- 
lated from the twenty-eighth German edition, by the Rey. RoBERT MENZIES. 
12mo, cloth. In press. 


THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT in its Relations to God and 


the Universe. By Tuomas W. JENKyN, D.D. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. In press. 

ug The calls for this most important and popular work,— which for some time past has been out 
of print in this country, — have been frequent and urgent. The publishers, therefore, are happy in 
being able to issue the work THOROUGHLY REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, EXPRESSLY FOR THE 
AMERICAN EDITION. (kk) 


VALUABLE WORKS. 
THE HALLIG; or, Tue Suerrrotp in THE Waters. A Tale of 
Humble Life on the Coast of Schleswig. Translated from the German of Biernatz- 


ski, by Mrs. Grorcr P. MArsH. Witha Biographical Sketch of the Author. 
12mo, cloth. $1.00. 


The author of this work was the grandson of an exiled Polish nobleman. His own portrait is 
understood to be drawn in one of the characters of the Tale, and indeed the whole work has a sub- 
stantial foundation in fact. In Germany it has passed through several editions, and is there regard- 
ed as the chef-d’ceuvre of the author. Asa revelation of an entire new phase of human society, it 
will strongly remind the reader of Miss Bremer’s tales. In originality and brilliancy of imagination, 
it is not inferior to those; —its aimis far higher. The elegance of Mrs. Marsn’s translation will at 
once arrest the attention of every competent jndge. 


Hon. Ropert C. WintHROP. ‘Ihave read it with deep interest. Mrs. Marsh has given us ar 
admirable versioa of a most striking and powerful work.” 


From Pror. . D. Huntineton, D. D., iN THE RELIGIOUS MAGazINE. ‘* Wherever the work 
goes it fascinates the cultivated and the illiterate, the young and the old, the devout and the careless. 
Our own copy isin brisk circulation. The vivid and eloquent description of the strange scenery, 
the thrilling accounts of the mysterious action of the waters and vapors of the Schleswig coast, &c., 
all form a story of uncommon attractions and unmingled excellence.” 


Dr. SPRAGUE IN ALBANY SPECTATOR: ‘A rare and beautiful work. It is an interesting 
contribution to the physical geography of a part of Europe lying quite beyond the reach of ordi- 
nary observatioa, and asa genial and faithful sketch of human life under conditions which are 
hardly paralleled elsewhere.” 


The tale is a novel one, containing thrilling scenes, as well as religious teachings. — PRESBYTERIAN, 


A beautiful and exquisite natural tale. In novelty of lifeand customs, as well as in nicely drawn 
shades of local and personal character the Hallig, is equalled by very few works of fiction. — 
Boston ATLAS. 


The story, which is deeply thrilling, is exclusively religious.— CH. SECRETARY. 


Here we have another such book as makes the reading of it a luxury, even in hot summer weather. 
It takes us to an island home, in the chil! regions of the North Sea, and introduces us to pastoral 
scenes as lively and as edifying as those of Oberlin, in the Ban de la Roche.— SOUTHERN Bap. 


THE CAMEL: His Organization, Habits and Uses, considered with refer - 
ence to his Introduction into the United States. By GEORGE P. Marsu, late U 
S. Minister at Constantinople. 16mo, cloth. 75 cents. 


This book treats of a subject of great interest, especially at the present time. It furnishes the only 
complete and reliable account of the Camel in the language. It is the result of extensive research 
and personal observation, and it has been prepared with special reference to the experiment now 
being made by our Government, of domesticating the Camel in this country. 


A repository of interesting information respecting the Camel. The author collected the principal 
wenterials for his work during his residence and travels for some years in the East. He describes 
the species, size, color, temper, longevity, useful products, diet, powers, training and speed of the 
Camel, and treats of his introduction into the United States. — PHIL. CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 


This is a most interesting book, on several accounts. The subject is full of romance and informa- 
tion ; the treatmentis able and thorough. — TExAs CH. ADVOCATE. 


Our Government have taken measures for introducing the Camel into this country, and an appro- 
priation of $30,000 has been made by Congress. It becomes a matter of practical importance, there- 
fore, to obtain the fullest and most reliable information possible respecting the animal and his adapta- 
tion to thiscountry. His advent among uswill stimulate general curiosity, and raise a thousand 
questions respecting his character and habits of life, his powers of endurance, his food, his speed, 
his length of life, his fecundity, the methods of managing and using him, the cost of keeping him, 
the value of his carcass after death, &e. This work furnishes, in a small compass, all the desired 
information.— BosToN ATLAS. 


A compleie sketch of the habits and nature of the Camel is given, which has great interest. The 
*aiue of the camel as a beast of burden is abundantly confirmed.—N. Y. EVANGELIST. (&) 


IMPORTANT NEW WORKS. 


THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS: or, Geology in its Bearings on 
the two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. By HuGH MILLER. “ Thou shalt be 


in league with the stones of the field.’ — Job. With numerous elegant illustrations, 
12mo, cloth, $1.25. 


The completion of this important work employed the last hours of the lamented author, and may 
be considered his greatest and in fact his life work. 


MACAULAY ON SCOTLAND. A Critique. By Hucw Mruer, 
Author of ‘‘ Footprints of the Creator,’ &c. 16mo, flexible cloth, 25c. 


’ When we read Macaulay’s last volumes, we said that they wanted nothing but the fiction to make 
&n epic poem; and now it seems that they are not wanting eyen in that. — PurITAN RECORDER. 

He meets the historian at the fountain head, tracks him through the old pamphlets and newspapers 
on which he relied,and demonstrates that his own authorities are against him.—_ BOSTON TRANSCRIPT. 


THE GREYSON LETTERS. Selections from the Correspondence of 
R. E. H. Greyson, Esq. Edited by Henry Rogers, Author of “The Eclipse of Faith.” 
12mo, cloth, $1.25. 


“Mr. Greyson and Mr. Rogers are one and the same person. The whole work is from his pen 3 
and every letter is radiant with the genius of the author of the ‘Eclipse of Faith.’” It discusses a 
wide range of subjects in the most attractive manner. It abounds in the keenest wit and humor, 
satire and logic. It fairly entitles Mr. Rogers to rank with Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb as 2 
wit and humorist, and with Bishop Butler as a reasoner. 

If Mr. Rogers lives to accomplish our expectations, we feel little doubt that his name will share, 
with those of Butler and Pascal, in the gratitude and veneration of posterity. — LONDON QUARTERLY. 


Full of acute observation, of subtle analysis, of accurate logic, fine description, apt quotation, pithy 
remark, and amusing anecdote. . . . A book, not for one hour, but for all hours; not for one mood, 
but for every mood, to think over, to dream over, to laugh over.— BosToNn JOURNAL. 

A truly good book, containing wise, true and original reflections, and written in an attractive style. 
— Hon. Geo. S. HILLARD, LL. D., in Boston Courier. 

Mr. Rogers has few equals as a critic, moral philosopher, and defender of truth. . . . This volume 
is full of entertainment, and full of food for thought, to feed on. — PHILADELPHIA PRESBYTERIAN. 


The Letters are intellectual gems, radiant with beauty and the lights of genius, happily inter- 
mingling the grave and the gay.— CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 


ESSAYS IN BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. By Perer Bayne, 
M. A., Author of “ The Christian Life, Social and Individual.” Arranged in Two SERIES, 
oR Parts. 12mo, cloth, each, $1.25. 


This work is prepared by the author exclusively for his American publishers. It includes eign. 
teen articles, viz-.: 

First SERIES :— Thomas De Quincy. — Tennyson and his Teachers. — Mrs. Barrett Browning. 
— Recent Aspects of British Art. — John Ruskin. — Hugh Miller.— The Modern Novel ; Dickens, &c. 
~~ Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. — Charles Kingsley. 

Seconp Series:—S. T. Coleridge. — T. B. Macaulay. — Alison. — Wellington. — Napoleon. ~— 
Plato. — Characteristics of Christian Civilization. — Education in the Nineteenth Century. — The 
Pulpit and the Press. 


LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. Abridged 


from the recent London, seven volume edition. By Mrs. H. C. Knieut, Author 
of ‘- Lady Huntington and her Friends,’ &c. With a fine likeness and an elegant 
illustrated title page on steel. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 


This is an original biography prepared from the abundant, but ill-digested materials con- 
tained in the seven octavo volumes of the London edition. The great bulk of that work, together 
With the heavy style of its literary exe:ution, ‘nust necessarily prevent its republication in this 
country. At the same time, the Christ‘an pubis: in America will expect some memoir of a poet 
whose hymns and sacred melodies have deen tr f light of every household. This work, it is confi- 
dently hoped, will fully satisfy the publiz ‘l’rv’r. Mis prepared by one who has already won distin- 
Suisneu 'gurels in this department o7 /iterafi (x) 


GOULD AND LINGOLN, 


Would call particular attention to the following valuable worxs described 
in their Catalogue of Publications, viz.: 


Hugh Miller’s Works. 

Bayne’s Works. Walker’s Works. Miall’s Works. Bungener’s Work, 
Annnal of Scientific Discovery. Knight’s Knowledge is Power. 
Krummacher’s Suffering Saviour, 

Banvard’s American Histories. The Aimwell Stories. 
WJewcomb’s Works. Tweedie’s Works. Chambers’s Works. Harris’ Works. 
“ Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature. 

Mrs. Knight's Life of Montgomery. Kitto’s History of Palestin 
Wheewell’s Work. Wayland’s Works. <Agassiz’s Works. 


=) f 
La = 


Hugh Miller, 7 


estimony of Rocks, 


\\ Ann. of Scient. Dj = 
NY Earth and Man,” gore nl 
Principles of Zoology, \\ “Louis Agassiz 


Comparative Anatom fm \ 
Mollusca and Shetjg’ \\ 
Thesaur. of Eng, worgg 

Knowledge is Power, \ 
\ Cyclop. of Eng, Literat., \ 
\ Cyclop. of Bible Lit., 
Concord. of the Bible, 
Analyt. Cone. of Bible, 
Moral Science, 


C. Th. Von «: 
Avast on Siebold. 


bert Chambers, 
itto. — Cruden. 
Eadie, — Williams. 


er, 


BIEUITES, 


William’s Works. Guyot’s Works. 

Chompson’s Better Land. Kimball’s Heaven. Valuable Works on Missions. 
Haven’s Mental Philosophy. Buchanan’s Modern Atheism. 
Cruden’s Condensed Concordance. TEadie’s Analytical Concordance. 
The Psalmist: a Collection of Hymns. 

Valuable School Books. Works for Sabbath Schools. 

Memoir of Amos Lawrence. 

Poetical Works of Milton, Cowper, Scott. Elegant Miniature Volcirer. 
Arvine’s Cyclopedia of Anecdotes. 

Ripley’s Notes on Gospels, Acts, and Romans. 

Sprague’s European Celebrities. Marsh’s Camel and the Hallig. 
Roget’s Thesaurus cf English Words. 

Hackett’s Notes on Acts. M’Whorter’s Yahveh Christ. 
8iebold and Stannius’s Comparative Anatomy. Marco’s Geological Map, U. 8. 
Religious and Miscellaneous Works. 

Works in the various Departments of Literature, Science and Art. 


LON) Bal Ayelet | 


rag =e : ; wove) we \ 
iis ea ' ’ 


+ 


i] 


Ns 
ar 


¥ : 
os ere 
7» a om 
Pee ts 
. 7. wi we n — 
ew 
> ar -) ri . 
5 ‘Oo « 
a ws ‘ 


\ 


SS See 
a! ss 


we poet 


—— = SAN NS 3 $e cba 42 oS 
—welract oo BS ~“ Sn se ee ome. SS = 
i i EP pe 
— ap met lores ad lie inn at a 
i ‘oe cee SS — 
UV ~ ~~" —— Ss —— 
ie o ss mes > gs "7 —— =. 
Bes ps = . 
a 


PTTL TTT 


o 


ey SE 


— a, OM jem: ? 
on Aah. $9 S - a - 
i vite Jee - a6 Sh AF a aye, Se 
ont toe Be, 5 ee = ee ee oe te 
- mn _* ieee: aire, a, ~*~ a, a a er 
= = us Fides shiek « Nee =) S eo 
= a eee 9 » BE, % ot may 
— “Noa m2 5 
= wer \ 38 ° 
~= 4 pes f 
oe 


os 
~ 


a 


PEEL sehen DE a APG EDT cas lees 
HITT 


7 


a 
> OA 
rn aes 


Fee) newer tnaunge 5s oan 


7 4 ‘ thet ae fet a 
iti, : ee nt Hiytyy 
BD q inte diy 
CATT Lee eT Ae LP 
“i Ault th et hed t ay 
it 


| 


fi segegii 
fi ih Hy 
i itd 

| 


iietatiennndld 


i 
} 
if 


== oo 
ea Fe ee 
el ~ Ce on tas. 

a OM <a = =