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ANNUAL 


OF 


SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: 


OR, 


YEAR-BOOK OF FACTS IN SCIENCE AND ART 


BOG) Be err 6 


EXHIBITING THE 


MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERTES AND IMPROVEMENTS 


IN 


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


TOGETHER WITH 


NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE DURING THE YEAR 1860; A LIST 
OF RECENT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS; OBITUARIES OF 
EMINENT SCIENTIFIC MEN, ETC. 

* 


EDITED BY 


DAVED A. WELLS, A. Ms 


AUTHOR OF PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY, 
SCIENCE OF COMMON THINGS, ETC. 


BOSTON: 
Sete AM ret NO On, DN, 


59 WASHINGTON STREET. 
NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 
CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD. 
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 


13 @8. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 
GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
In tbe Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


ANDOVER: 
ELECTROTYPED AND PEINTED 


BY W. BE. DEA PEER. 


NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


ON THE 


- PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FOR THE YEAR 1860. 


THE fourteenth meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science was held August 1-8, 1860, at Newport, R I. 
— Isaac Lea, Esq., of Philadelphia, in the chair. The whole number 
of papers registered for presentation was 78. 

The number of members in attendance was small, only 140 names 
appearing on the register during the continuance of the meeting. 
“‘ Neither can we,” says the editor of Silliman’s Journal, in commenting 
on the meeting, “ conceal the fact, that while many papers of marked 
ability were presented, the character of this meeting was not in all 
respects creditable to American science. A conviction prevailed 
among many who were present at Newport of a decadence in the 
scientific character of the Association, of a Joss of tone, which, if not 
already a demoralization, threatened soon to become such.” 

The Association adjourned, to meet in Nashville, Tennessee, in April, 
1861. The officers of the Nashville meeting are: President, F. A. P. 
Barnard, LU.D., President of the University of Mississippi; Vice 
President, Dr. Robt. W. Gibbes, of South Carolina; General Secre- 
tary, Prof. J. W. Mallet, of Mississippi; Treasurer, Dr. A. L. Elwyn, 
of Philadelphia. 

The thirtieth annual meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science was held at Oxford, June, 1860, Lord Wrottes- 
ley in the chair; and was one of the most successful meetings since 
the foundation of the Association. 

The meeting for 1861 was appointed to be held at Manchester — 
Mr. Fairbairn, the celebrated English engineer, being the President 
elect. 

From the address cf the President on the “ Progress of Science ” 
since the previous meeting, we make the following extracts: — “The 
observations of our private astronomical observers have been chiefly 
devoted to seven important objects : First, the observing and map- 
ping of the smaller stars, under which term I include all those which 
do not form the peculiar province of the public observer ; secondly, 


se o/ [LJ 


IV NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


the observations of the positions and distances of double stars ; thirdly, 
observations, delineations, and catalogues of the nebule ; fourthly, 
observations of the minor planets; fifthly, cometary observations ; 
sixthly, observations of the solar spots, and other phenomena on tlhe 
sun’s disk ; seventhly, occultations of stars by the moon, eclipses of the 
heavenly bodies, and other occasional extra-meridional observations. 

“ And, first, as to cataloguing and mapping the smaller stars. This 
means, as you know, the accurate determination by astronomical cbser- 
vation of the places of those objects, as referred to certain assumed 
fixed points in the heavens. The first Star Catalogue, worthy to be so 
called, is that which goes by the name of Flamsteed’s, or the British 
Catalocue. Jt contains above 3000 stars, and is the produce of the 
labors of the first Astronomer Royal of Greenwich. About the middle 
of the eighteenth century, the celebrated Dr. Bradley, who also filled the 
post of Astronomer Royal, observed an almost equally extensive Cata- 
logue of Stars, and the beginning of the nineteenth century gave birth 
to that of Piazzi of Palermo. These three are the most celebrated of 
what may be now termed the ancient Catalogues. About the year 
1830, the attention of modern astronomers was more particularly 
directed to the expediency of redbserving the stars in these three Cat- 
alogues ; a task which was much facilitated by the publication of a 
very valuable work of the Astronomical Society, which rendered the 
calculations of the observations to be made comparatively easy ; and, 
accordingly, observations were commenced and completed in several 
public and private observatories, from which some curious results were 
deduced ; as, é. g., sundry stars were found to be missing, and others 
to have what is called ‘ proper motion? And now a word as to the 
utility of this course of observation. It is well observed by Sir John 
Herschel, ‘that the stars are the landmarks of the universe; every 
well-determined star is a point of departure which can never deceive 
the astronomer, geographer, navigator, or surveyor. We must have 
these fixed points in order to refer to them all the observations of the 
wandering heavenly bodies, the planets and the comets. By these 
fixed marks we determine the situation of places on the earth’s sur- 
face, and of ships on the ocean. When the places of the stars have 
been registered, celestial charts are constructed ; and by comparing 
these with the heavens, we at once discover whether any new body be 
present in the particular locality under observation ; and thus have 
most of the fifty-seven small or minor ‘planets between Mars and Jupiter 
been discovered. The observations, however, of these smaller stars, 
and the registry of their places in Catalogues, and the comparisons of 
the results obtained at different and fice periods, have revealed 
another extraordinary fact, no less than that our own sun is not fixed 
in space, but that it is constantly moving forward towards a point in 
the constellation Hercules, at the rate, as it is supposed, of about 18,000 
miles an hour, carrying with it the whole planeiary and cometary sys- 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. Vv 


tem; and if our sun moves, probably all the other stars or suns move 
also, and the whole universe is in a perpetual state of motion through 
space. 

“ The second subject to which the attention of private observers has 
been more particularly directed is that of double or multiple stars, or 
those which, being situated very close to one another, appear single to 
the naked eye, but when viewed through powerful telescopes are seen 
to consist of two or more stars. The measuring the angles and dis- 
tances from one another of the two or more component stars of these 
systems has led to the discovery that many of these very close stars 
are, in fact, acting as suns to one another, and revolving round their 
common centre of gravity, each of them probably carrying with it a 
whole system of planets and comets, and, perhaps, each carried for- 
ward through space like our own sun. It became then a point of 
great interest to determine whether bodies so far removed from us as 
these systems observed Newton’s law of gravity; and to this end it was 
necessary to observe the angles and distances of a great number of 
these double stars, scattered everywhere through the heavens, for the 
purpose of obtainmg data to compute their orbits. This has been 
done, and chiefly by private observers, and the result is that these 
distant bodies are found to be obedient to the same laws that prevail 
in our own system. 

“Of all the phenomena of the heavens, there are none which excite 
more general interest than comets, and though the larger and brighter 
comets naturally excite most general public interest, and are really val- 
uable to astronomers, as exhibiting appearances which tend to throw light 
on the internal structure of these bodies, and the nature of the forces 
which must be in operation to produce the extraordinary phenomena 
observed, yet some of the smaller telescopic comets are, perhaps, more 
interesting in a physical point of view. Thus the six periodical comets, 
the orbits of which have been determined with tolerable accuracy, and 
which return at stated intervals, are extremely useful, as being likely 
to disclose the facts of which, but for them, we should possibly have 
ever remained ignorant. Thus, for example, when the comet of Encke, 
which performs its revolution in a period of a little more than three years, 
was observed at each return, it disclosed the important and unexpected 
fact that its motion was continually accelerated. At each successive 
approach to the sun it arrives at its perihelion sooner and sooner; and 
there is no way of accounting for this so satisfactory as that of sup- 
posing that the space in which the planetary and cometary motions are 
performed is everywhere pervaded by a very rarefied atmosphere or 
ether, so thin as to exercise no perceptible effect on the movements of 
massive solid bodies, like the planets, but substantial enough to exert a 
very important influence on more attenuated substances moving with 
great velocity. The effect of the resistance of the ether is to retard the 


tangential motion, and allow the attractive force of gravity to draw the 
1* 


vi NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


body nearer to the sun, by which the dimensions of the orbit are con- 
tinually contracted and the velocity in it augmented. The final result 
will be that, after the lapse of ages, this comet will fall into the sun; 
this body, a mere hazy cloud, continually flickering, as it were, like a 
celestial moth round the great luminary, is at some distant period des- 
tined to be mercilessly consumed. Now the discovery of this ether is 
deeply interesting as bearing on other important physical questions, 
such as the undulatory theory of light; and the probability of the 
future absorption of comets by the sun is important as connected with 
a very interesting speculation by Professor Wm. Thomson, who has 
suggested that the heat and light of the sun may be from time to time 
replenished by the falling in and absorption of countless meteors which 
circulate round him; and here we have a cause revealed which may 
accelerate or produce such an event. 

“On the 1st of September last, at eighteen minutes past 11 A. M., 
a distinguished astronomer, Mr. Carrington, had directed his telescope 
to the sun, and was engaged in observing his spots, when suddenly two 
intensely luminous bodies burst into view on its surface. They moved 
side by side through a space of about 35,000 miles, first increasing in 
brightness, then fading away; in five minutes they had vanished. 
They did not alter the shape of a group of large black spots which lay 
directly in their paths. Momentary as this remarkable phenomenon 
was, it was fortunately witnessed and confirmed, as to one of the bright 
lights, by another observer, Mr. Hodgson, at Highgate, who, by a happy 
coincidence, had also his telescope directed to the great luminary at 
the same instant. It may be, therefore, that these two gentlemen 
have actually witnessed the process of feeding the sun, by the fall of 
meteoric matter ; but, however this may be, it is a remarkable circum- 
stance, that the observations at Kew show that on the very day, and at 
the very hour and minute of this unexpected and curious phenomenon, 
a moderate but marked magnetic disturbance took place ; and a storm, 
or great disturbance of the magnetic elements, occurred four hours 
after midnight, extending to the southern hemisphere. Thus is exhib- 
ited a seeming connection between magnetic phenomena and certain 
actions taking place on the sun’s disk, — a connection which the obser- 
vations of Schwabe, compared with the magnetical records of our 
colonial observatories, had already rendered nearly certain. 

“In chemistry I am informed that great activity has been displayed, 
especially in the organic department of the science. For several years 
past processes of substitution (or displacement of one element or organic 
group by another element or group more or less analogous) have been 
the main agents employed in investigation, and the results to which 
they have led have been truly wonderful; enabling the chemist to 
group together several compounds of comparatively simple constitution 
into others much more complex, and thus to imitate, up to a certain 
point, the phenomena which take place within the growing plant or 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. VII 


animal. It is not, indeed, to be anticipated that the chemist should 
ever be able to produce, by the operations of the laboratory, the 
arrangement of the elements in the forms of the vegetable cell or the 
animal fibre ; but he may hope to succeed in preparing some of the 
complex results of secretion or of chemical changes produced within 
the living organism,— changes which furnish definite crystallizable 
compounds, such as the formiates and the acetates, and which he has 
actually obtained by operations independent of the plant or the ani- 
mal. Hofmann, in pursuing the chemical investigation of the remark- 
able compound which he has termed Tvriethylphosphine, has obtained 
some very singular compound ammonias. Triethylphosphine is a body 
which takes fire spontaneously when its vapor is mixed with oxygen, at 
a temperature a little above that of the body. It may be regarded as 
ammonia in which an atom of phosphorus has taken the place of nitro- 
gen, and in which the place of each of the three atoms of hydrogen in 
ammonia is supplied by ethyl, the peculiar hydrocarbon of ordinary 
alcohol. From this singular base Hofmann has succeeded in procuring 
other coupled bases, which, though they do not correspond to any of 
the natural alkalies of the vegetable kingdom, such as morphia, quinia, 
or strychnia, yet throw some light upon the mode in which complex 
bodies more or less resembling them have been formed. 

“The bearing of some recent geological discoveries on the great 
question of the high antiquity of Man was brought before your notice 
at your last meeting by Sir Charles Lyell. Since that time many 
French and English naturalists have visited the valley of the Somme 
in Picardy, and confirmed the opinion originally published by M. 
Boucher de Perthes, in 1847, and afterwards confirmed by Mr. Prest- 
wich, Sir C. Lyell, and other geologists, from personal examination of 
that region. It appears that the position of the rude flint-implements, 
which are unequivocally of human workmanship, is such, at Abbeville 
and Amiens, as to show that they are as ancient as a great mass of 
gravel which fills the lower parts of the valley between those two 
cities, extending above and below them. This gravel is an ancieat 
fluviatile alluvium by no means confined to the lowest depressions 
(where extensive and deep peat-mosses now exist), but is sometimes 
also seen covering the slopes of the boundary hills of chalk at eleva- 
tions of eighty or one hundred feet above the level of the Somme. 
Changes, therefore, in the physical geovraphy of the country, compris- 
ing both the filling up with sediment and drift, and the partial reéxca- 
vation of the valley, have happened since old river-beds were, at some 
former period; the receptacles of the worked flints. The number of 
these last, already computed at above fourteen hundred in an area of 
fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth, has afforded to a 
succession of visitors abundant opportunities of verifying the true 
geological position of the implements. 

“ The old alluvium, whether at higher or lower levels, consists not 


Vill NOTES BY:‘THE EDITOR 


only of the coarse gravel with worked flints above mentioned, but also 
of super-imposed beds of sand and loam, in which are many fresh- 
water and land shells, for the most part entire, and of species now 
living in the same part of France. With the shells are found bones of 
the mammoth and an extinct rhinoceros, FP. tichorhinus, an extinct 
species of deer, and fossil remains of the horse, ox, and other ani- 
mals. These are met with in the overlying beds, and sometimes also 
in the gravel where the implements occur. At Menchecourt, in the 
suburbs of Abbeville, a nearly entire skeleton of the Siberian rhinoce- 
ros is. said to have been taken out about forty years ago, a fact afiord- 
ing an answer to the question often raised, as to whether the bones of 
the extinct mammalia could have been washed out of an older alluvium 
into a newer one, and so redeposited and mingled with the relics of 
human workmanship. 

“ The exploration of caverns, both in the British Isles and other parts 
of Europe, has in the last few years been prosecuted with renewed 
ardor and success, although the theoretical explanation of many of the 
phenomena brought to light seems as yet to bafile the skill of the ablest 
geologists. Dr. Falconer has given us an account of the remains of 
several hundred hippopotami, obtained from one cavern, near Palermo, 
in a locality where there is now no running water. The same palzon- 
tologist, aided by Colonel Wood, of Glamorganshire, has recently 
extracted from a single cave in the Gower peninsula of South Wales 
a vast quantity of the antlers of a reindeer, perhaps of two species 
of reindeer, both allied tothe living one. These fossils are most of 
them shed horns; and there have been already no less than eleven 
hundred of them dug out of the mud filling one cave. 

“Tn the cave of Brixham, in Devonshire, and in another near Paler- 
mo, in Sicily, flint implements were observed by Dr. Falconer, associated 
in such a manner with the bones of extinct mammalia, as to lead him 
to infer that man must have cozxisted with several lost species of quad- 
rupeds; and M. de Vibraye has also this spring called attention to 
analogous conclusions, at which he has arrived by studying the posi- 
tion of a human jaw with teeth, accompanied by the remains of a 
mammoth, under the stalagmite of the Grotto d’Arcis, near Troyes, in 
France.” 

An international congress of persons interested in chemical pursuits 
was held at Carlsruhe, Germany, in September, 1860, Dumas of Paris 
being in the chair. ‘The attendance was large, and although a great 
majority of those present, as might have been expected, were Ger- 
mans, yet representatives from many other parts of the world were not 
wanting. The proceedings lasted some days, and a detailed account 
of the deliberations is to be published. 

Among the questions submitted for general discussion were the 
following : — 

Would it be judicious to establish a difference between the term 
atom and molecule ? 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 1®.€ 


Is the idea of equivalents empirical and independent of the idea of 
atom or molecule ? 

Would it be desirable to place chemical notation in harmony with 
the progress of science ? 

The last question was answered with much emphasis i in the aflirma- 
tive; but M. Dumas thought the time had not yet come to adopt a 
definite method of notation. He wished, however, to see at once added 
to the system of Berzelius the modifications which were rendered ne- 
cessary by the recent progress of organic chemistry. One important 
point to which he called the attention of the congress was the necessity 
of looking at the requirements of instruction: in this respect unity in 
language and theory seemed to be most desirable. The President 
concluded by expressing the hope that the meeting would not be the 
last, and that next year the Eurepean chemists would again meet to 
discuss some of the points of a science cultivated at present with so 
much ardor and success. 

In the department of geographical research, the past two or three 
years have been periods of great activity; and especially in the ex- 
ploration of Central Africa the zeal of explorers seems to have been 
greatly increasede “The earlier discoveries of Livingstone,” says Sir 
R. I. Murchison, in his address before the Section of Geography and 
Ethnology, at the last meeting of the British Association, “ have been 
followed by other researches of his. companions and himself, which, as 
far as they go, have completely realized his anticipation of detecting 
large elevated tracts, truly Sanatorza as compared with those swampy, 
low regions near the coast, which have impressed too generally upon 
the minds of our countrymen the impossibility of sustaining a life of 

exertion in any intertropical region of Africa. The opening out of the 
Shire river, that grand affluent of the Zambesi, with the description of 
its banks and contiguous lofty terraces and mountains, and the devel- 
opment of the healthfulness of the tract, is most refreshing knowledge, 
the more so as it is accompanied by the pleasing notice that in this 
tract the slave-trade is unknown, except by the rare passage of a gang 
from other parts; whilst the country so teems with rich vegetable 
products, including cotton and herds of elephants, as to lead us to hope 
that a spirit of profitable barter, which powerfully animates the natives, 
may lead to their civilization, and thus prove the best means of eradicat- 
ing the commerce in human beings. Whilst Livingstone was sailing to 
make his last venture, Captains Burton and Speke were returning from 
their glorious exploits into a more central and northern region of South 
Africa, where they had discovered two great internal lakes, or fresh- 
water seas, each of them not less than three hhundred miles in length. 
I may here notice, to the honor of our government, that Captain Speke, 
associated with another officer of the Bengal army, Captain Grant, has 
received £2500, to enable him to terminate his examination of the 
great Nyanza lake, under the equator, and we have reason to hope 


x NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


that he will find the chief feeders of the White Nile flowing out from 
its northern extremity, and thus determine the long-sought problem of 
one of the chief sources of that classic stream.” 

Cooley, the Englsh geographer, has published an article in sup- 
port of his belief that the great lake Nyanza, the southernmost por- 
tion of which has been described by Livingstone, and visited by 
several of the Portuguese explorers, is identical with the Tanganyika, 
the northern end of which was discovered by Burton and Speke. 
If this theory be true, then we shall have a great inland sea, available 
for navigation, eight hundred and forty nautical miles in length, and 
extending from latitude 2° to 12° south of the equator. 

At ies last meeting of the British Association, the following com- 
munication on Antarctic explorations, addressed by Captain Maur : 
U.S. N., to Lord Wrottesley, the President, was received and read: — 

“ My Dear Lord Wrottesley, —I hope the time is not far distant 
when circumstances will be more auspicious than at present they 
seem, for, as soon as there appears the least chance of success, I shall 
urge the sending from this country an exploring expedition to the 
eight millions of unknown square miles about the south pole. An 
expedition might be sent from Australia, with little er no risk. Two 
propellers, or even two vessels with auxiliary steam-power, might be 
sent out, so as to spend our three winter months in looking for a suit-- 
able point along the Antarctic continent to serve as a point of depart- 
ure for overland or over-ice parties. Having found one or more such 
places, vessels, properly equipped for land and ice and boat expedi- 
tions, might be sent the next season, there to remain, seeking to pene- 
trate the barrier, whether of mountain or of ice, or both, until the 
next season, when they might be relieved by a fresh party, or return 
home to compare notes, and be governed accordingly. You know the 
barometer, at all those places which have a rainy and a dry season, 
stands highest in the dry, lowest in the wet. Now I do not find any 
indications that the Antarctic barometer has months of high range ; it 
is low all the year. Therefore, if I be right in ascribing the apparent 
tenuity of the air there to the heat that is liberated during the con- 
densation of vapor from the heavy precipitation that is constantly 
taking place along the sea front of those ‘barriers,’ we should be 
correct in inferring that the difference in .temperature between the 
Antarctic summer and winter is not very marked. If, in a ease like 
this, we might be permitted to indulge the imagination, we might fancy 
the ‘barrier’ to be a circular rat nge of mountains, and that beyond 
these lies the great Antarctic basin. Bey ond this range, as beyond 
the Andes, we may fangy a rainless region, as in Peru, a region of 
clear skies and mild climates. Though the air in passing hig: range 
might be reduced below the utmost degree of Arctic cold, yet being 
robbed of its vapor, it would receive as sensible the latent heat 
thereof. Passing off to the polar slope of these mountains, this air, 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XI 


then, would be dry air ; descending into the valleys, and coming under 
the barometric pressure at the surface, it would be warm air. Leslie 
has explained how, by bringing the attenuated air down from the snow 
line, even of the tropics, and subjecting it to the barometric weight of 
the superincumbent mass, we may raise its temperature to inter-tropi- 
cal heat by the mere pressure. In like manner this Antarctic air, 
though cold and rare while crossing the ‘ barrier,’ yet receiving heat 
from its vapors as they are condensed, passing over into the valleys 
beyond, and being again subjected to normal pressure, may become 
warm. We have abundant illustrations of the modifying influences 
upon climate which winds exercise after having passed mountains and 
precipitated their vapor. The winds which drop the waters of the 
Columbia river, ete., on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, 
make a warm climate about their base on this side, so much so that 
we find in Nebraska the lizards and reptiles of Northern Texas. 
Indeed trappers tell me that the Upper Missouri is open in fall long 
after the Lower is frozen up, and in spring long before — several 
weeks — the ice in the more southern parts has broken up. The 
eastern slopes of Patagonia afford even a more striking illustration of 
climates being tempered by winds that descend from the mountains 
bearing with them the heat that their vapor has set free. Thus you 
-observe that an exploring party after passing the barrier might, as they 
approach the pole, find the Antarctic climate to grow milder instead 
of colder. It would be rash in the present state of our information 
to assert that such zs the case; but that such may be the case should 
not be ignored by the projectors and leaders of any new expedition 
to those regions. The existence of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean 
has, with a great degree of probability, been theoretically established. 
But the circumstances, as strong as they are, which favor the existence 
of an open water there, are not so strong and direct as are the proofs 
and indications of a mild polar climate in the Antarctic regions. I 
have examined the immense library of log-books here for the lines of 
Antarctic ice-drift. There appear to be two, both setting to the north- 
east, one passing by the Falkland Islands, the other having its north- 
ern terminus in the regions about the Cape of Good Hope. Further 
south, icebergs are found all around ; but in these lines of drift they 
are found nearest the equator. The space between the Falkland 
drift and the Good Hope drift is an unfrequented part of the ocean. 
It may, therefore, be one broad drift, the edges of which only I have 
pointed out. The most active currents from the south do not run 
with this ice. Humboldt’s current is the most active, but it does not 
get its icebergs as far north as they come by these lines. This cir- 
cumstance has suggested the conjecture that one part of the Antarctic 
Continent must be peculiarly well situated for the formation of gla- 
ciers and the launching of icebergs. These lines of drift point to 
such a place.” 


XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


An Arctic expedition, organized by public subscriptions, to follow 
substantially the route of Dr. Kane, and to attempt to reach the open 
Polar Sea, sailed during the past summer from Boston, under the 
command of Dr. Isaac L. Hayes (surgeon of the Kane expedition), 
with Dr. Sontag as astronomer. The expedition was at Upernavik 
August 14th, from whence Dr. Hayes writes as follows : — 

“T anticipate reaching Cape Frazer, lat. 70° 42’, where I propose 
spending the winter. A degree lower, however, will place one within 
practicable reach of my proposed field of exploration. If the condi- 
tion of the ice will permit, I will immediately, after a-winter harbor 
has been selected, carry forward the boat which I intend using for 
next summer’s labors, and some provisions, as far north as possible, 
and then leave them, secured against the bears, and return to the 
schooner after the winter has firmly set the ice. Early next spring we 
shall push forward advance depots, and, should we find either ice or 
water, we shall endeavor to accomplish with boats or sledges, or with 
both, the chief object of the voyage before the close of the summer. 
If this fortune awaits us, we shall then return home without unneces- 
sary delay. Ido not, however, anticipate this result, but I expect 
that we shall be detained two winters. I shall endeavor, by every 
means, to avoid a third year’s absence. We carry with us, however, 
food and fuel for that period, and, in the event of our being so long’ 
detained, I do not fear adverse results. With the fresh supplies we 
have on board, I believe we can resist the scurvy.” 

The act of Congress of June 22, 1860, authorized the President to 
send some competent person or persons to the Isthmus of Chiriqui, to 
examine and report upon the quality and probable quantity of coal to 
be found on the lands of the Chiriqui Improvement Company, the 
character of the harbors of Chiriqui Lagoon and Golfito, and the 
practicability of building a railroad across said isthmus, so as to con- 
nect said harbors. An expedition was accordingly sent, uncer the 
command of Captain Engle, U. S. N., with Lieutenants Jeffers and 
Morton as engineer officers, and Dr. Evans as geologist. The reports 
of these gentlemen show that the harbors on both sides of the Isthmus 
of Chiriqui are unsurpassed ; that, in the opinion of Lieutenant Mor- 
ton, “it is entirely practicable to connect the harbors by a line of 
railroad adapted to commercial purposes ;” and that the coal found 
there is of excellent quality, and the supply inexhaustible. 

The discussion of the observations of the U. S. astronomical expe- 
dition to Chili, under Lieut. Gillis, conclusively establishes the fact 
that Valparaiso, and probably the whole coast of Chili, as laid down 
on the best charts (those of the British Admiralty), are four and four- 
fifths miles too far to the west, an error of much importancé to navi- 
gators. 

The State Geological survey of California has been organized 
during the past year by the appointment of Prof. J. D. Whitney as 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XIII 


geologist, Mr. William Ashburner filling the post of assistant geologist, 
and Prof. W. H. Brewer that of agricultural chemist and_ botanist. 
The act authorizing the survey also. contemplates the establishment 
of a state museum upon a most extensive scale; and the whole enter- 
prise is started on a most liberal and enlightened basis, and com- 
mences under more favorable auspices than any similar work hitherto 
projected in this country. 

Dr. Newberry, the well-known geologist of Ohio, has returned to 
his home during the past year, after successful geological explorations 
in New Mexico and Utah. Some of the results of his labors are 
noticed in the American Journal of Science as follows :— 

“‘ His collection of fossils is very large, offering conclusive evidence 
of the geological structure of a very large area. Of the Cretaceous 
deposits he was fortunate in obtaining a peculiarly satisfactory analy- 
sis. Contrary to all our previous notions, these beds turn out to be 
much more largely developed, that is, existing in much greater force, 
stratigraphically, west of the Rocky Mountains than east of them. In 
Southern Utah (just where Marcou claims there are no Cretaceous 
rocks) he found beautiful exposures, of four thousand feet in thickness, 
of strata of that ave, with abundant fossils, both animal and vegetable. 
The bones of a huge Saurian are among Dr. Newberry’s novelties.” 

M. de Khanikoff has published a map of levellings, made by him in 
1859, in Khorassan, Affghanistan, Seistan, and Central Pe ersia, Over an 
extent of two hundred thousand square miles. They are located by 
a triangulation connected with the triangulation of Trans-Caucasia. 
This vast country is subdivided into four terraces of unequal extent, 
and with a mean height of fifteen hundred to three thousand feet, 
each having a central depression and forming a basin. The first and 
largest contains the grea areca between Koum and Nichapoor ; the 
second and southwestern, which is the driest of all, is the desert of 
Loot, between Khorassan and Irak; the third h the desert of Seistan, 
has at its lowest point Lake Hamoon; and the fourth occupies the 
country between Toon Khaf and Selzar. The mountains which fur- 
row these terraces are composed mainly of crystalline rocks, and are 
remarkable for their uniformity and for the extreme dryness of their 
slopes. The vegetation of the first and last named terraces is iden- 
tical with that of the plains of Transoxiania; the others present some 
plants of tropical forms, similar to those of Southern Arabia. Wher- 
ever the country is sheltered against the cold northern winds, the 
date-tree is cultivated with success. 

A geological survey of Norway is now going on, under the direc- 
tion of Prof. Kjerulf, of the University of Christiana. The greater 
part of Southern Norway is already surveyed, and the northern part, 
it is expected, will be soon completed. 

In 1858 the Imperial Academy of Science of St. Petersburg sent 
two young Russian naturalists, Messrs. Sjiiwerzow and Borschtschow, 

2 


XIV NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


on a geological and botanical expedition to the steppes of the Kirghiz. 
A brief account of their explorations has just been published. The 
most remarkable result attained was the discovery, on the northeastern 
side of the Aral, of a completely marine flora, consisting of numerous 
species which are found in no other inland body of water, whether 
salt or fresh. It has been known for some time that the mollusca of 
the Aral, if not identical with those of the ocean, were at least very 
similar to them. These two facts go far to prove that the Caspian 
and the Aral formed originally a portion of one great oceanic bay. 

General Schubert has communicated to the Academy of Sciences 
of St. Petersburg a determination of the figure of the earth based on 
the principal measurements of degrees; he believes that it is an ellip- 
soid with three axes, or, in other words, that not only the meridians 
are ellipses, but that the equator is also an ellipse, though differing 
very slightly from a circle. 

The King of Bavaria is having executed, at his own expense, a 
magnetic chart of Europe, to which several years of Jabor have 
already been devoted. M. Lamont, director of these works, has 
addressed to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, through the interven- 
tion of M. Elie de Beaumont, curious and important details upon the 
determination of the constant inclinations of the magnetic needle in 
the South of France and of Spain. Mariners will profit by the table 
of the declinations of the needle in the principal ports of France, 
Spain, and Portugal, traced by this savant. The declination is at 
Toulon, 16° 45’ west; at Marseilles, 17° 7; at Oporto, 22° 10; at 
Brest, 22° 33 at Cherbourg, 21° 38; at Dunkerque, 20° 10, ete. 
This declination has, within a century, been diminishing at an aver- 
age rate of seven minutes per annum. 

During the past year the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, insti- 
tuted at Cambridge, Mass., by Professor Agassiz, and for the founda- 
tion and endowment of which $225,000 was raised from the state and 
by private subscription, has been so far completed as to be formally 
dedicated and opened to the public. The plan adopted by Professor 
Agassiz differs essentially from that of any other museum in the world. 
His aim has been to make the collection help the student by the sim- 
plicity and progressive character of the arrangement, instead of per- 
plexing him by the multitude of different objects to be studied. The 
student finds, first, a simple collection of the representatives of the four 
great types of animals, arranged as a vestibule, as it were, to the com- 
plete collection, so that the beginner who has not made his first step in 
zoology, or the visitor not conversant with the objects of the institu- 
tion, can within half an hour obtain an index, as it were, of the 
principles of zoclogy, and learn the essential characteristics of the 
four great types of the animal kingdom, so as to recognize precisely 
what radiates, what molluscs, what articulates, and what vertebrates 
are. Next in order are representatives of the above classes arranged 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XV 


for comparative examination and study. There is then to be a collec- 
tion of animals, or fossils, arranged according to their paleontological 
character, that is to say, according to the geological age in which 
they flourished. It is also contemplated to have another collection of 
animals based upon their geographical distribution,—the bear of 
the poles being brought side by side with the reindeer, etc., of the 
same regions, and the lion of the equator with other animals of hot 
countries; and also an exbibition of embryos in all stages of their 
development. The museum in its present state already ranks as the 
ninth in the world in its special departments, and it is the hope of the 
founder to make it within his own lifetime equal to any. 

A movement is now making to establish in Boston an institution on 
a most comprehensive plan, devoted to the practical sciences and arts, 
to be called “ Toe MAssAacuusetts INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,” 
having the triple organization of a Socicty of Arts, a Museum or Con- 
servatory of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science and Art. The 
vast and increasing magnitude of the industrial interests of New Eng- 
land furnishes a powerful incentive to the establishment of such an 
institution; and many of the leading minds of this section of country 
have long felt it imperative to provide for the people, in addition 
to the established educational systems, such facilities for acquiring 
practical knowledge, and for the intelligent guidance of enterprise and 
labor, as may make the progress of the New England States commen- 
surate, step by step, with the advance of scientific discovery. 

A recent report of the Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia gives 
the whole number of specimens of birds now in the museum of that 
society at about twenty-nine thousand. It embraces Mr. Gould’s 
collection of the birds of Australia, also a large collection made by 
Captain Boys in the interior countries of India, and the collection 
made by General Massena, Duke of Rivoli, which was once regarded 
as the finest private collection of birds in Europe. Of the whole number 
of specimens in the museum of the society, over twenty-six thousand 
were the gift of a single individual, —the well-known ornithologist, 
Dr. T. B. Wilson. 

The State Agricultural College of New York, situated at Ovid, 
between the Cayuga and Seneca lakes, is completed, or sufficiently so 
to be occupied, and will be open for instruction during the present 
year. Major Patrick, formerly of the army, will be at the head of the 
institution, assisted by an efficient corps of teachers, and the friends of 
the institution have great confidence that it will be largely attended by 
young men who intend to devote themselves to the intelligent pursuit 
of agriculture, and will prove a most useful and thriving school. 

There has been recently established in London a Society for the 
Acclimatization of Animals, Birds, Fishes, Insects, and Vegetables. 
The Secretary is F. T. Buckland, Esq., whose name and that of his 
father are so thoroughly associated with natural history. The purposes 


xVI NOTES BY THE EDITOR 


of the institution are thus set down in an advertisement: “1. The 
introduction, acclimatization, and domestication of all innoxious animals, 
birds, fishes, insects, and vegetables, whether useful or ornamental. 
2. The perfection, propagation, and hybridization of races newly intro- 
daced, or already domesticated. 3. The spread of indigenous animals, 
etc.,from parts of the kingdom where they are already known, to other 
localities where they are not known. 4. The procuration, whether by 
purchase, gift, or exchange, of animals, ete. from foreign countries. 5. 
The transmission of animals, etc., from England to her colonies and 
foreign parts, in exchange for others sent thence to the society. 6. The 
hol ding of periodical meetings, and the publication of reports and 
transactions for the purpose of spreading knowledge of acclimatization, 
and inquiry into the causes of success or failure. It will be the 
endeavor of the society to attempt to acclimatize and cultivate those 
animals, birds, ete, which will be useful and suitable to the park, the 
moorland, the plain, the woodland, the farm, the poultry-yard, as well 
as those which will increase the resources of our sea-shores, rivers, 
ponds, and gardens.” 

The Emperor Louis Napoleon, during the last ten years, has done 
more for the improvement of agriculture and rural economy than has 
been done by ail the other sovereigns of Europe put together. The 
Emperor’s farms are situated in various parts of France, from the 
Landes, south of Bordeaux, to the neighborhood of Paris. They are 
model farms,— draining, subsoiling, breeding of cattle, and other 
forms of agricultural improvement being carried on in the most 
approved manner. ‘The French government has, since the first revo- 
lution, always bestowed special attention on agriculture, horticulture, 
and arboriculture. Lectures on agriculture and horticulture are 
delivered by first-rate men in the capital and in the provinces, and, 
though these are partly the results of private enterprise, they every- 
where meet with countenance and encouragement from the govern- 
ment. Gardening is taught by precept and example in many of the 
elementary schools, and the young proficients are rewarded by prizes 
distributed yy the ison authorities. Among other things, the ltera- 
ture of rural affairs is judiciously fostered by the imperial government. 
The “ Ampelographie Frangaise” is a magnificent work on the vines of 
France, published under the auspices of the Minister of Agriculture. 
Jt contains a series of folio engravings of grapes in their mature state 
and. natural sizes, carefully drawn and beautifully colored, together 
with an ample accompaniment of letterpress, describing the growth of 
the vines and the special culture of the vineyards, and exhibiting 
the statistics of the wine products of France with fulness, minuteness, 
and accuracy. 

The Society of Pharmacy at Paris offer a prize of 6000 francs 
for the discovery of the artificial production of quinine, or, in default 
of this, for a substitute possessing equivalent anti-febrile properties. 


ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XVII 


The prize is open to scientists of all nations, and the time is limited 
to July, 1861. 

In the recent revision which has taken place in the British Phar- 
macopeeias, certain changes have been made, which, unless similar 
modifications be adopted in this country, will tend to embarrass the 
American student of British medical literature. The change consists 
in discarding the troy weights hitherto employed in dispensing and 
compounding medicines, and in adopting a new set of weights founded 
on the avoirdupois pound, which is divided into sixteen ounces, each 
containing four hundred and eighty parts, called grains, instead of 
four hundred and thirty-seven, as heretofore. The grain, scruple, and 
drachm of this new standard preserve their old relations to each 
other, and will accordingly be about ten per cent. less than the corre- 
sponding weights at present in use, and a proportionate addition would 
require to be made in the doses of the various medicines prescribed. 

Mr. J. E. Wappzeus has published at Leipsic, during the past year, 
a work entitled “ General Statistics of Population,’ which shows con- 
clusively that the Malthusian doctrine, that the increase of population 
is by geometrical progression, is a mistake. In France, for instance, 
the rate of increase has been steadily decreasing since the peace of 
1815, it being as follows: — 


182] to 1881, . : . 6.7 per cent. | 1841 to 1851, . “ . 4.4 per cent. 
1831 to 1841, : = 5) ee i851 to 1856, F ai ee 


In England, the decrease in the rate of increase has been less : — 


1811 to 1821, . : . 16.6 per cent. | 1831 to 1841, . ; . 13.5 per cent. 
1821 to 1831, —. 1G ee 1841 to 1851,- . Paling $ 


In Prussia, the annual rate of increase was : — 


1817 to 1828, . : . 1.71 per cent. | 1840 to 1846, . - . 1.27 per cent. 
1829 to 1840, —«. x 1.80 ee 1846 to 1856, .69 es 


In Belgium, the annual percentage of increase fell from 1.08 pre- 
vious to 1846 to .42 from 1846 to 1856; in Holland, it fell from .93 
previous to 1840, to .69 from 1840 to 1850. 

Mr. Wappzus gives the following table of the percentage of 
annual increase in the countries of Western Europe, and the period 
required for doubling. It is based on the rate of movement during 
the last fifteen years : — 


Increase. Time of Doubling. 
Norway, . - 4 : ; ; Seals 61 Years. 
Denmark, ; : : : : : 0.58 (Ora 
Sweden, . 4 : 2 . 2 5 (taste! Tom ass 
Saxony, . , : E A ; : 0.84 3) pee 
Holland, . : C : A : = O68 LOS ei 
Sardinia, ‘ : : : : ; 0.58 TNS weak 
Prussia, « : p ; ; F . 0.53 dsilewsSs 
Belgium, : ; . : : : 0.44 L581 ee 
Great Britain and Ireland, . Anica es: soa oy ss 
Austria, . a ‘ ; ; - 0.18 335. 
France, ; : é ‘ ‘ 3 4 O44 SOR ee 
Hanover, : : ‘ : ; ; 0.02 oto 


XVill NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 


The aboriginal inhabitants of the Pacific islands are vanishing 
before the peaceful aggressions of colonization in a manner unexampled 
even in the history of our decaying Indian tribes. The swift decline 
of the Sandwich islanders is well known, but even their fearful rate 
of decay is exceeded by that of the more southern insular people. 
The Maoris of New Zealand, were estimated by Sir George Grey in 
1851 at 120,000; the census of 1858 makes their number only 50,000. 
“ Neither census,” remarks one peculiarly fitted by a long residence 
among them to prenounce an opinion, ‘“‘may be very accurate, but 
both indicate, what every one in New Zealand knows, that the native 
races are becoming extinct with a rapidity unprecedented in the © 
annals of nations.” In Tasmania the earliest European colonists 
found in 1803 more than 5,000 natives; they now number less than 
a score. In Australia the same fatal process is going on. ‘The cen- 
sus of 1855 made the native population of South Australia to be 
8,540, and that of 1860 shows them to have decreased to 1,700. In 
Victoria there were in 1848 nearly 5,000 Australian aboriginals; in 
1860 there are only 1,768. 


yy 


Til 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 


ON THE WAVE-LINE THEORY. 


Tue following is an abstract of a paper read before the British Institution 
of Naval Architects by J. Scott Russell, March, 1860, the object of which was 
to consider the nature of the motion imparted to water when disturbed by a 
vessel pushed through it by motive power of any kind: 

The first inquiries to be made were, What became of all the water which 
a ship removed out of her way? and, How did it get out of the way? In 
prosecuting these inquiries, the author had first employed a small trough, 
or canal, a foot wide, a foot deep, and of considerable length, and began 
with a very simple experiment. He supported a small heap of water above 
the level of that in the trough by means of a partition at one end, and then 
withdrew the partition to see what the water would do, and found that it 
assumed a beautiful wave-form of its own, ran along the whole length of the 
channe! to the end, and left the surface of the water over which it had passed 
as still as it was before. Had the end of the trough been just level with the 
surface of the still water, the wave would have jumped over, and left the 
whole of the water in the canal perfectly undisturbed. This phenomenon 
is now known as the “ solitary wave of translation.” This wave would 
travel to an almost incredible distance. The author had followed such a 
wave, on horseback and by other means, for miles. It leaves a little of 
itself, however, along the whole surface over which it passes. 

The next fact ascertained was, that wherever the bow of a ship is moved 
through the water, a wave of this kind is produced, and this is the “‘ travel- 
ling” or “carrier”? wave, which gets rid of all the water out of the canal 
which the vessel has to excavate. The ship feels no more of it, for it 
spreads itself in a thin film all along the surface of the water, ahead of the 


20 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


vessel,— not behind the vessel, nor on each side of it, — with far greater 
velocity than that of the vessel itself. After having made experiments on 
a small scale, the author took vessels on a large scale, had them dragged by 
horses, and in other ways, through the water, and by positive observations 
and measurement found that this was really what became of the water dis- 
placed by the bow of the boat. On one occasion he drew so large a number 
of boats along a canal in one direction, on a certain day, that the waves 
carried a great part of the water from one end of the canal to the other, and 
in the evening the water in the canal was found raised eighteen inches at 
one end, and depressed to the same extent at the other. The velocity with 
which the travelling wave moved was found to depend entirely on the depth 
of the water. 


At 3 feet deep the wave travels 6 miles an hour 


ee 5 6 ““ ce 8 iT ce 
“c“ 7 se 6s 66 10 ce “cc 
cc 10 ce 6s 9 12 co e 
“ 15 ‘73 66 “cc 15 6s ce 
‘ts 20 ec ce i 18 s6 6¢ 
ee 380 ce ce “ce 90 ce ce 
6c 40 cc ac cc 25 6s «e 
ce 50 “c cc “ce 80 cc “ 


In addition to a constant velocity, this wave has a constant shape, a 
drawing of which was exhibited by the author. Anda most extraordinary 
circumstance was, that its form corresponded exactly with the form of bow 
which he had previously, and from altogether different considerations, con- 
structed as the form of least resistance. Moreover, he found that what he 
had endeavored to do in constructing that form, — viz., move the particles of 
water gradually out of the way, from one position of rest to another, — the 
travelling wave also did; for on closely observing the water in the experi- 
mental trough under the action of such a wave, he observed that it lifted 
every particle of water over which it passed out of one place forward into 
another place, and there left it perfectly at rest. In the traveiling wave, 
therefore, as in ordinary waves, the particles of water composing it were 
continually being replaced by others, while the wave itself advanced without 
apparent change. The foregoing facts convinced the author that the form 
of bow which he had adopted, and which has since been called the “‘ wave 
form,” was analogous and conformable to the nature of water and of wave 
motion. 

Like many others, the author at first thought that the stern of a vessel 
ought to be of the same form as the bow; but thought it proper to under- 
take a series of experiments, with the view of ascertaining what happened 
when a hole in the water had to be filled up. Where did the water that 
filled it come from? and how did it come? He first found that the hollow 
made in the water had no tendency to travel with an independent velocity 
of its own, but moved just as fast, and only as fast, as the body which pro- 
duced it. He then discovered that the currents of water rushing into such 
a hollow, from different directions, met, and produced a wave, which he 
called the “ following wave,” or the “refilling” or “replacing wave,” and 
which always moved with the velocity of the ship, and had nothing to do 
with the depth of the water. The “ following wave” also repeated itself in 
an endless series astern of the vessel. The author explained that the nature 
of this wave required that the stern of the ship should be formed of cycloidal 
curves, and showed how this fact was applied in actual construction. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. ya | 


The author might be asked, reverting to the wave at the bow, What 
became of the water at the bow, supposing he dragged the boat faster than 
the water could spread itself? The answer was: With only a moderate 
force at his disposal the boat could not be made to travel faster; but if he 
had force enough to compel it to go in spite of the water, the water would 
rise up and stand on both sides of the boat until the load had passed, and 
then fall down into the hole left behind it. In a shallow canal in Scotland, 
where the carrier-wave travelled only seven miles an hour, he had compelled 
a boat to go ten miles, and he found that the water not only rose up, but 
lifted the boat with it, so that she drew less water than before, and actually 
went easier at ten miles an hour than at five. Had not railways come into 
fashion just at the time, the country would have been covered with little 
troughs, and people would have been riding on the tops of these waves in 
an easier and cheaper mode than by any other means then known. 

After explaining the different results which are sometimes obtained at 
trials in the Thames, owing to the velocities of the travelling-wave varying 
with the depths of the water, the author described the best means of ob- 
serving the wave on rivers and other like places, and then proceeded to the 
application of some of the principles before laid down to practice. First, he 
said it was a delightful circumstance that the wave-principle did not meddle 
at all with the form of a ship’s midship section, but left the conductor 
entirely free to adopt any form of section he pleased. Next, it did not tie 
him down to any proportion of depth to breadth. It was, therefore, a plas- 
tic thing, and could be applied to any general form of ship whatever. The 
third and most important proposition was, that the wave-line prescribed the 
exact length of ship for every speed at which you wish a ship to go, and 
explains why a long ship is indispensable to speed. To go six miles an 
hour, your vessel must be at least 30 feet long; for eight miles an hour, 50 
feet long; for ten miles, 70 feet; for twelve miles, 100 feet; for fifteen, 150; 
for eighteen, 200; for twenty, 300; for twenty-five, 400; and for thirty, 500. 
The author had himself tried to obtain higher velocities than these with 
shorter vessels; and he had got them, but at such a fearful waste of power 
that it was insanity and folly not to lengthen the vessels for the purpose. 
The wave-line theory also told you that the length of the bow should be to 
that of the run as 3 to 2. The cause of this was explained. 

The lines of the Great Eastern, the author said, were neither more nor 
Jess than an exact copy of the wave-lines. The length of the bow was 330 
feet; the length of the run, 226; and having got this length of entrance and 
run, and feeling that more capacity was wanted, it was of no use lengthen- 
ing the bow or the run, because there was already provision for greater speed 
than the fifteen miles an hour which the power to be put into her could be 
expected to give; 120 feet of parallel body were therefore put into her amid- 
ships. The great ship might be of less fine-lines and still go with the same 
velocity. 

There was a very valuable conclusion for practical ship-builders to be’ 
drawn, independently of what had been stated about the lines. It was this: 
That proportionate length and breadth were not necessary at all for a fast 
vessel. It was not necessary for a fast vessel that she should be a narrow, 
thin, long vessel in proportion to her size. The author had taken vessels en 
the wave-line principle two hundred fect long, and had them made of every 
variety of breadth, and as long as they were two hundred feet long, and had 
the lines belonging to fifteen or sixteen miles an hour, so long they had gone 


22 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


at that velocity with a given power. Further: the resistance which a vesscl 
experiences from the sticking of water to the skin was a most formidable 
element of her whole resistance; and greater velocity in proportion to power 
would be got out of a yessel which was shorter than another, and also 
broader and deeper than another, providing length enough for the velocity 
aimed at were got at starting. 

It was the duty of the author, however, to say a word or two on the his- 
tory of the subject, and the degree of novelty or non-novelty to which it 
pretended. And he began with saying that he did not claim to be the in- 
ventor of hollow bows. They had existed as far back as he could trace 
steam navigation. When he had first discovered what he believed to be the 
principles of nature which bore on this subject, he felt that the form of ves- 
sel which accorded with them could not be new, and he set about examining 
all classes of vessels. He found proofs immediately; so many, that he felt 
astonished that the books and treatises on naval architecture had not all told 
them to do nothing but make hollow bows from the beginning. He showed 
that it must have been impossible for barbarous men to have made a rough 
boat from two flat planks without forming such a bow. But the old tonnage 
laws had compelled builders to make ships of the greatest possible capacity 
compatible with certain measurements. Hence the bluff bow was made a 
matter of necessity. When, during the wars, we captured Spanish ships or 
privateers with fine and often hollow lines below, — vessels which sailed 
admirably under their original trim, in which they were down by the stern, — 
we invariably found that they proved but dull sailers in our hands, owing 
undoubtedly to the fact that we not only overloaded them with weights, but 
trimmed them nearer to an even keel, and so brought the bluff upper part 
of their bows down into the water. The boats of the London watermen 
illustrated the same principle. 

The author concluded by stating that the rapid advancement of confidence 
in the wave principle was owing very much to the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, which had placed at his disposal large means 
for the prosecution of scientific researches into this subject, and had every 
year enabled him to publish to the world the progress which he was making 
in the investigation. 


NEW METHOD OF CLEANING THE BOTTOMS OF IRON VESSELS. 


A new and novel method of cleaning the bottoms of iron vessels has been 
successfully put in operation by Captain R. P. Dyker, of New York City. 
The apparatus consists of blocks, each formed of three pieces of cork-wood 
and one of white-wood, firmly bolted together. On the piece of white- 
wood are fastened nine knives, or scrapers, six of which run parallel with 
the line of the vessel, and the remaining three are placed at right angles 
with the others. Ropes pass through these blocks, which latter may be so 
arranged as to be of any required length. To lengthen them it is only ne- 
cessary to shackle on others. The block that comes in contact with the keel 
is much thicker than the others, so that it may reach that portion of the 
bottom which the thinner blocks would not. The blocks of course vary 
with the depth of keel of the vessel which is to be cleaned. 

The operation of cleaning an iron brig of about two hundred tons is thus 
described by the New York Commercial Advertiser: The apparatus con- 
sisted of seven blocks, of eighteen inches in length, ten inches wide, and 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS, 23 


seven inches in thickness; the keel block being just double this size. The 
blocks were cast overboard, and the rope which was attached to them was 
passed around the bow and underneath the bottom of the vessel, and by 
hauling upon the ropes alternately the scraping brought off a large quantity 
of dirt. 

Five men were employed in the operation, which seemed quite easy. 
The pressure of the water kept the blocks close to the vessel’s side, while 
the lightness of the materials added much to the rapidity with which the 
apparatus performed the work. As rapidly as the part of the vessel on 
which the apparatus was employed was cleaned, the men moved a few 
inches aft, until the whole bottom was thoroughly scraped. When the 
sharp curves of the vessel’s lines interfere with the use of the blocks, a 
peculiar-shaped scraper, fitted to a long pole, is used, and, being floated also 
by cork, the work is comparatively easy and rapid. 


BEACHING THE GREAT EASTERN. 


The operation of cleaning the bottom of the Great Eastern has been per- 
formed by placing her upon a “ gridiron,” or framework of timber, on the 
beach at Milford Haven, England. The arrangement of this construction 
is described as follows in the London Times: 

The beach, to the distance of five hundred and fifty feet, has been exca- 
vated and levelled to within a few feet of low-water mark at spring tides, 
which at high water will give a depth of twenty-five to twenty-seven feet. 
The beaching-place itself is composed of two ‘ grids,” fifty yards distant 
from each other. Each grid is one hundred and fifty feet long, constructed 
of forty strong transverse “ baulks,”’ or beams, of forty-five, thirty-five, 
thirty, and twenty-five feet long by thirteen inches square. They are laid 
down in four lots, ten of each length, with an interval between each beam 
of three feet. Each baulk of timber is firmly fixed in its place by three 
iron-shod piles, of from three to four feet long. The longest of these lots is 
laid nearest amidships, and the rest according to their length, thus tapering 
off to the stem and stern, so as in some degree to correspond with the beam 
of that part of the ship that will be immediately above them. Two “ dol- 
phins,” thirty feet in height, made of four baulks, each thirteen inches 
square, firmly clamped and bolted together, strongly supported by back and 
diagonal struts, have been driven in at about three hundred feet apart. 

These are for the ship’s side to lie against, as well as to act as guides in the 
actual operation of beaching. One of these dolphins will be just ferward 
of the starboard sponson, and the other near her starboard quarter. These, 
together with the mooring tackle and other necessary gear, all of which are 
provided, will keep the vessel in her position. The Great Eastern being six 
hundred and fifty feet long, it will thus follow that when in position she will 
be supported for five hundred and fifty feet of her length; viz., three hun- 
dred on the two grids, and two hundred and fifty on the levelled beach, 
leaving only fifty feet of her bow and stern projecting beyond the timbers 
and excavations. The whole structure has been made at the expense of the 
South Wales Railway Company, and will cost upwards of one thousand 
pounds. 


IRON-PLATED SHIPS. 


The first steel-plated frigate, constructed by the French government, was 
launched in September last. She is called La Gloire, and is a magnifi- 


24 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


cent vessel, seventy-seven metres long and sixteen metres large — two hun- 
dred and fifty by fifty-one feet English. Her aspect is imposing by the 
severity of her lines and by the mass of her iron cuirass. At the height 
of 1.82 metres — barely six feet —above the water, she presents a battery 
of thirty-four guns of the most powerful effect; on the forecastie, two long- 
range pieces; on the quarter-deck, an iron redoubt to protect her com- 
mander at his post during the action. The reduced masts and wide funnel 
indicate that the vessel is not intended to go to a distance from our ports, 
but that she is made for operations in the seas where henceforward the 
great differences of European policy will be settled. The frigate has been 
fhrice to sea, and it may now be said that she has gloriously terminated her 
trials. In calm weather she parts the water without shock, and it may 
almost be said without foam, showing thereby how perfectly her propor- 
tions have been conceived. Her speed, measured on a fixed basis of nearly 
eight kilometres, reached 13,4; knots, which is the finest result ever ascer- 
tained in a ship-of-war. In a ten hours’ trip her average rate was 12,2), 
knots with all her fires lighted, and 11 knots with half her fires. In a rough 
sea she behaved perfectly. She pitches very gently, and rolls with a regu- 
larity that leaves nothing to be desired. — Dloniteur de la Floiie. 


THE FASTEST STEAMBOAT-RUNNING ON RECORD. 


On the 13th of October, the steamboat Daniel Drew made the trip between 
New York and Albany in six hours and fifty minutes, with five landings and 
against ahead wind. The distance on the Hudson River route between the 
two places is considered to be one hundred and fifty miles; and if we allow 
ten minutes for each of the landings, —they having to be made on both 
sides of the river, — the actual running time will be six hours, and the aver- 
age speed twenty-five miles per hour. This is equal to locomotive running, 
and the fastest ocean steamers, in the calmest weather, do not come within 
eight miles per hour of this figure. — Scientific American. 


IRON SHIPS. 


A congress of the most eminent ship-builders and naval architects of 
Great Britain assembled in London, in April, 1860;— Sir John Packington 
in the chair, —for the purpose of discussing different points of interest in 
their profession. 

One of the most important topics brought forward was the construction 
of iron ships, and the following is an abstract of the discussion which took 
place on the subject. Mr. William Fairbairn stated that he had been en- 
gaged for a period of forty years in various works connected with iron, and 
its application for ship-building purposes. About thirty years ago, in con- 
junction with the Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, he found by numerous ex- 
periments that vessels made of iron would be capable of more resistance, 
lighter, and better calculated for a large cargo, than timber-built vessels. 
Messrs. Laird and. himself then commenced building iron vessels on a large 
scale, and from 1835 until 1848 upwards of one hundred first-class ships 
were produced. When first constructed, iron vessels had many defects; 
great improvements had since taken place, but much remained to be done. 
Of late years this class of vessels had been constructed very long, in order 
to give them fine lines and increase their carrying power; but hitherto this 
increase of length had been obtained at an expense of the strength ef the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. B5 


ship. In many cases the length of iron vessels was eight or nine times that 
of the beam, and although he did not say that such had yet obtained their 
maximum length, yet the mode of construction was capable of much im- 
provement. He assured them that vessels in a rolling sea, or stranded on a 
lee-shore, were governed by the same laws of transverse strain as hollow 
iron beams, like the Britannia tubular bridge; hence a ship could not be 
lengthened with impunity without adding to its depth or the sectional area 
of the plates in the middle. An iron ship of the ordinary construction — 
300 feet long, 414 feet beam, and 263 feet deep — was inadequately designed 
to resist strains when treated as a simple beam; and a ship was like a sim- 
ple beam when supported at each end by waves, or when, rising on the crest 
of a wave, itwas supported on the centre with the stem and stern partially 
suspended. In these positions an iron ship underwent, alternately, a strain 
of compression and a strain of tension along the whole section of the deck, 
corresponding with equal strains along the keel. Such a vessel could make 
a number of voyages at sea, because it was there sustained in a measure by 
the water; but when driven upon a rock, with its bow and stern suspended, 
it would break in two, owing to the insufficient mode of constructing the 
decks. An iron ship of the foregoing dimensions, as usually constructed 
and tried by the beam formule W = (adc —/), would be broken asunder 
if tried with a weight of nine hundred and sixty tons suspended from bow 
and stern. But if the deck-beams were covered with iron plates throughout 
the whole length on each side of the hatchway, so as to render the deck area 
equal to that of the bottom, we should have nearly twice the strength. He next 
considered the displacement of such a vessel in tons, and found the strength 
far from satisfactory. When loaded to a depth of eightecn feet, the displace- 
ment was about one hundred and seventy-seven thousand cubic feet — equiv- 
alent to five thousand tons for the ship and cargo. If we considered this 
weight uniformly distributed, and compared it with the strength determined, 
we have a load uniformly distributed of five thousand tons added to that of the 
breaking weight of the metal in the vessel, which would leave a deficiency of 
strength equal to one thousand one hundred and sixty tons; so that, if laid 
high and dry on a rock at the centre, it would break with four-fifths of the 
load which it carried. These were extreme cases, but ships should be built 
for them if possible. There had been imprevements introduced recently in 
iron vessels, still they were all too weak in the decks. These, he argued, 
should beso strengthened as to be equal to the keel, and thus provide a 
margin of strength for every contingency. He recommended the addition 
of two longitudinal stringers, running one on each side of the keel; the cov- 
ering of the cross-bearers of the upper deck with iron stringer plates, thick- 
est towards the-middle; also two cellular rectangular stringers — one on 
each side of the hatchway — all running the whole length of the ship. He 
also argued the importance of using the best quality of metal. No plates 
should be employed that were incapable of withstanding a tensile strain of 
twenty tons per square inch. ; 

Mr. J. Scott Russell pointed out various improvements which he had 
carried out, especially with relation to water-tight bulkheads. These were 
a source of great strength to iron vessels, as they were placed inside the 
ship; and even if a collision took place, and the ship was cut through, they 
would save it from sinking. Twelve years ago he built a vessel which 
might be described as all bulkheads, and entirely divested of frames. Be- 
lieving that the centre of the vessel required to be essentially strong, he 


3 


26 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


carried a web of iron completely through it, in some cases passing through 
the bulwarks, and sometimes avoiding them. 

Mr. Ritchie (surveyor of Lloyd’s Register) said he should like to hear 
something from Mr. Russell on the subject of rivets. 

Mr. Russell said that was a most important matter in the construction of 
iron ships. He had recently inspected a vessel returned from a voyage, and 
found that the heads of at least one thousand rivets were off. How they 
came off was a mystery to him; but he gave a very modest rap with a 
hammer, and one of the rivets dropped out. He had adopted the system of 
conical riveting, which he found to answer very well, as, when the head was 
gone, therivet was perfectly water-tight. 

Mr. Napier (of Glasgow) observed that he did not approve of the tubular 
system advocated by Mr. Fairbairn; and it must be remembered that a sta- 
tionary tubular iron bridge had not to contend with the constant strain of 
the sea. Many and conflicting opinions prevailed as to the best form of the | 
Keel; some were for having it flat, others sharp—and perhaps both were 
right. (Laughter.) For his own part, he did not build a vessel to go on 
the rocks; but if she were taken there he could not help it. If they could 
possibly arrive at the absolute breaking power of the sea which an iron 
vessel would bear, it would be a great discovery. He. agreed with Mr. Scott 
Russell, that it was not in the power of man to build a ship which would be 
able to bear up against the breaking power which the Royal Charter encoun- 
tered as the sea went over her broadside. 

Mr. Fairbairn again addressed the meeting, expressing his opinion that 
iron ship-building was at present in a transition state. They required to 
have better and stronger plates; and if owners would only give a fair price 
for their vessels, many catastrophes which resulted from the use of bad iron 
might be averted. 


ON THE EFFECTS OF VIBRATORY ACTION AND LONG-CONTINUED 
CHANGES OF LOAD UPON WROUGHT-IRON GIRDERS. 


In a paper presented by Mr. Fairbairn to the British Association for 1860, 
the author detailed the results of a set of experiments, having for their 
object the determining of matters with which the public are intimately con- 
cerned, viz., the efficacy of girders supporting bridges over which railway 
trains are constantly passing. It is well known that iron, whether in the 
shape of railway axles or girders, after undergoing for a length of time a 
continued vibratory or hammering action, assumes a different molecular 
structure, and, though perfectly efficient in the first instance, becomes brittle, 
and no longer capable of sustaining the loads to which it may be subjected. 
Mr. Fairbairn stated that the practical conclusion to which his experiments, 
so far as they had at present gone, would lead, was, that a railway girder 
bridge would, irrespective of other causes, last a hundred and fifty years. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE STEAM-ENGINE. 


An improvement in the construction of steam-engines recently devised 
and patented by Richard Barton, of Troy, N. Y., has for its object, first, to 
enable a steam-engine having a long cylinder, and consequently a long 
stroke of piston, to be brought within a comparatively small space; and, 
second, to enable two complete revolutions of the crank shaft to be pro- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. Fe 


duced by the stroke of the piston back and forth. The invention consists 
in connecting the piston-rod and crank of an engine by means of a system of 
toggles and connecting-rods, applied and arranged in a peculiar manner, 
whereby the above objects are accomplished, and an engine possessing 
superior qualities for driving the screw-propeller is obtained. « 


ERICSSON’S CALORIC ENGINE. 


The applicability of Ericsson’s caloric engines for all but a very few of the 
thousand uses for which power is required, has within the past few years 
been sufficiently demonstrated, and the introduction and use of them is no 
longer a matter of experiment. More than five hundred of these engines — 
varying in dimensions of cylinder from 6 to 32 inches —are now in suc- 
cessful operation in different parts of the country. Many of these are 
employed as domestic motors in pumping water. A large number, chiefly 
18-inch cylinders, are performing a similar office at railway stations. Mr. 
Vibbard, the General Superintendent of the New York Central Railroad, 
after having had five of these engines in use at water-stations for several 
months, reports officially, over his signature as superintendent, that they 
perform an “incredible” amount of labor “for the small quantity of fuel 
consumed.” One of them, at the Rise station, he says, performs the labor 
of four men, at an expense of 79°; of one cent per hour; and one at the 
Savana station does the labor of five men, at a cost of eleven cents per day, 
making a saving of over $120 per month. ‘‘ We have decided,” he says, 
““to use the engines at all stations where we are compelled to supply locomo- 
tives by pumping.” An engine of the same size at the Newmarket station, 
on the New Jersey Central Railroad, raises thirty-three thousand gallons of 
water at the cost of less than nine cents a day, or fifty-three cents for six 
days, as appears from the certificate of Mr. Overton, road-master. 

For driving printing-presses, the caloric engine has been found equally 
useful. Fifteen daily newspapers in the United States are now printed by 
it, and we need not add that a daily paper calls for a motor that is economi- 
cal, efficient, and in all respects reliable. The engines thus employed are of 
18-inch and 24-inch cylinders. 

Engines of 24-inch and 32-inch cylinders are used in raising grain at rail- 
way stations, and merchandise in large stores; in pulverizing quartz, split- 
ting leather, propelling sewing-machines, pulping and hulling coffee, ginning 
cotton, and crushing sugar-cane. 

The 24-inch engine has also been successfully applied for anips’ uses, in 
pumping, loading, and discharging cargoes, warping ship, handling the 
anchor, and for many other purposes now calling for manual labor. 

Many engines have been sent to Cuba, where they have been successfully 
applied to various uses. And within a recent period an order has been 
issued by the governor forbidding the erection of any other kind of engines 
in the city of Havana, or in any town on the island. 

It is found that, with every increase of dimension, the power of the engine 
is more than proportionately increased ; and while the engine has been from 
time to time enlarged from 6 to 8, 12, 18, 24, and 32-inch cylinder with com- 
plete practical success, there is no reason to believe that the 48 or 60-inch 
eylinder will express the limit of available and economical power. It is 
sufficient to say that this limit is not yet ascertained, and that actual results 
indicate that it has not been approximated. 


28 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Several of the largest machine-shops in the United States are now engaged 
in the manufacture of these engines, under licenses from the patentee. 
Among these we may mention the establishments of I. P. Morris & Co., of 
Philadelphia; the Newark Machine Co., of Newark, N. J.; Clute Brothers, 
of Schenectady, and William Kidd & Co., of Rochester, New York; and 
Nourse & Caryl, of Boston. Mr. John B. Kitching has established a general 
agency for the engine in New York City, where he sells machines of his own ~ 
manufacture, and those of the manufacture of other licensees. 

It is but an act of justice to the caloric engine to state that the elaims that 
are made for it of entire safety and great economy seem to be abundantly 
sustained by competent testimony; and we do not forget that the only com- 
petent testimony in the case is that of men who have themselves employed 
the engines, or watched them diligently and intelligently in the actual per- 
formance of their offices. Such testimony is that of Professor Henry, offi- 
cially made to the Lighthouse Board, to the practical operation of an 18-inch 
caloric engine in its application to Daboll’s fog whistle, or trermpet. He 
says: ‘It [the caloric engine] is very simple in construction, easily put 
in operation; .. . easily worked, and not liable to get out of order. . . The 
quantity of fucl required to supply the necessary amount of motive power is 
too small to be considered an item of importance. ‘The furnace holds about 
a peck of coal, and no addition to the fire was made during the time the 
committee was making the examination, though the engine was constantly 
in motion for several hours. But the properties which more particularly 
recommend it for the purpose of signals are, that it offers not the least dan- 
ger of explosion, and no water is required for its operation.” 


LENOIR’S GAS-ENGINE. 


Considerable interest has been excited during the past year, in Paris, by 
the exhibition of a working gas-engine, devised by M. Lenoir, a French 
engineer. 

The machine in question somewhat resembles an ordinary steam-engine, 
but its motive power is obtained by the combustion of the ordinary illumi- 
nating gas, mixed with atmospheric air. In certain proportions, this mix- 
ture is explosive, as gas-engineers weil know. But in Lenoir’s machine the 
detonating proportion of two volumes of gas to one of air is avoided, and 
the highest combination allowed is one of gas to nine of air. Besides, the 
two are not brought into contact till they have entered the cylinder, when 
they are ignited by a spark from a little Ruhmkorff apparatus, and the dila- 
tation of the gases forces the piston forward with great force. When the 
piston reaches the end of the cylinder, it is carried back a little way by the 
momentum of the fly-wheel, opening a valve at the same time, and admit- 
ting another supply of hydrogen and air, which is ignited by an electric 
spark, and so the alternate motion is established. The whole machine is 
simple and beautiful, and the only question as to its utility seems to be the 
very important one of economy. 

On this point M. Lenoir states, (1), that the prime cost of his machine is 
only about half that of a steam-engine of the same power; and, (2), that even 
in using street gas, at the rate of $1.60 per thousand feet, the saving of fuel, 
as compared with the steam-engine, is at least fifty per cent., and that they 
hope to obtain the non-illuminating gas, which will answer the purpose just. 
as well, at one-sixth of the price mentioned. One disadvantage of the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 29 


steam-engine is shared by M. Lenoir’s, viz., all the heat generated canz:. 
be converted into power. If there was nothing to hinder the complete 
expansion of the gases, the temperature of the expanded gas would be as 
low as before the combustion; but, after a certain point of dilatation is 
reached, the expansive force left is not sufficient to move the piston, and the 
air must then be turned into the waste-pipe, though still very highly heated. 
On the other hand, there are several advantages claimed. Besides the low 
prime cost and alleged economy of fuel, there is a great saving from the 
facility of starting the machine in an instant — certainly a very great advan- 
tage, considering the loss of time and fuel attendant upon raising steam. 
Then there is considerable expense involved in stopping a steam-engine, 
which is obviated here; the combustion in Lenoir’s engine being stopped 
instantaneously by the turning of a button. 


ON A METHOD OF TESTING THE STRENGTH OF STEAM BOILERS. — 
BY DR. JOULE. 


The author adverted to the means hitherto adopted for testing boilers. 
First, That by steam pressure, which gives no certain indication whether 
strain has not taken place under its influence, so that a boiler so tested may 
subsequently explode when worked at the same or even a somewhat less 
degree of pressure. He trusted that this highly reprehensible practice had 
been wholly abandoned. Second, That by hydraulic pressure obtained by a 
force-pump, which does not afford an absolutely reliable proof that the boiler 
has passed the ordeal without injury, and, moreover, requires a special appa- 
ratus. The plan which had been adopted by the author for two years past, 
with perfect success, was free from the objections which applied to the 
above, and is as follows: The boiler is entirely filled with water, then a 
brisk fire is made in or under it. When the water has thereby been warmed 
a little, say to 70° or 90° Fahrenheit, the safety-valve is loaded to the pres- 
sure up to which the boiler is to be tested. Bourdon’s or other pressure 
indicator is then constantly observed; and if the pressure occasioned by the 
expansion of the water increases continuously up to the testing pressure, 
without sudden stoppage or diminution, it may be safely inferred that the 
boiler has stood it without strain or incipient rupture. 

In the trials made by the author, the pressure rose from zero to sixty-two 
pounds on the square inch in five minutes. The facility of proving a boiler 
by this method was so great, that he trusted that owners would be induced 
to make those periodical tests, without which fatal experience had shown that 
no boiler should be trusted. — Newton’s ( London) Journal. 


THE GAUGE OF RAILWAYS. 


The London Engineer says that experience has demonstrated a narrow 
gauge to be decidedly superior to a broad gauge for railways. The power 
required to work them is much less, broad gauge roads requiring engines 
and carriages of excessive weight. The broad gauge necessitates longer 
axles, which increase the liability of one wheel to run ahead of the other 
on the same axle, to which there is a tendency on all roads, and a conse- 
quent binding of the wheels between the rails. It is perfectly established 


that the narrow gauge affords sufficient space for the heaviest engines. 
3* 


30 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


THE CONTINUOUS RAIL. 


Our readers are aware that a continuous or compound rail has been for 
some years employed on various railways; that it has made an obviously 
improved, smooth, and easy-riding track, when new, at least, and that it is 
still largely used on the New York Central and other lines. But the general 
impression is, that it has not proved remarkably successful, if, indeed, it has 
not decidedly failed. A very brief review of the history of continuous rails, 
however, and of the circumstances of American roads, will show that the 
plan is a decided improvement in every particular; that its first cost, and 
renewals, and the repairs of the rolling stock carried by it, are much less 
than in the case of the common rail. 

The first continuous rail was the common rail split vertically from top to 
bottom — the two nearly equal parts breaking joints with cach other, and 
fastened together with rivets. In case of wheels worn on other and differ- 
ent sized rails, the whole bearing might come on one of these parts, rapidly 
crushing it, and prying the two apart. The lamination of the inside edges 
still further sundered the two bars, and the frost rapidly split them apart, 
breaking the rivets. This rail was impracticable, although for a few months 
it made,the best road ever laid. While it was good, and before it had seri- 
ously deteriorated, it was believed to have saved enough repair expenses of 
way and machinery to have nearly paid for its extra cost. The next plan of 
continuous rail had a split head and a solid foot, half the section of the 
head resting on the foot of the other half. The abrasion of the iron upon 
iron, in the absence of rigid connection between them, soon destroyed this 
rail, but it manifestly decreased the repair expenses of machinery. <A suc- 
cessful continuous rail was then brought out, which had a split foot and a 
solid head, the small section of the foot forming a sort of continuous splice, 
or bracket-joint. This has been in service for above six years on the New 
York Central. It is to be regretted that that company has not kept a more 
definite record of the influence of the continuous rail on the repair expenses. 
The obvious results of long practice, however, are such that it is still largely 
used, and that the manner in which it eases the shocks usual at the joints 
of common rails, and its uniform elasticity, have made it a decidedly paying 
investment. But the philosophy of permanent way, as deduced from the 
general experience, is more conclusive. No one will dispute the fact that 
the thorough ballasting and drainage of the road-bed will allow the use of 
such a high rail as can alone be thoroughly spliced at the joints. But this 
high rail is necessarily rigid, and if not supported by an even bed of ballast 
and sleepers, will bring its bearing on widely distant parts of the road-bed, 
since it cannot yield so as to bear on all parts; hence the rail will perma- 
nently bend and rapidly deteriorate, and, when both rigid and rough, will 
form the worst imaginable track. The experience with the seven-inch rails 
on the body-ballasted part of the Camden and Amboy line proves this, while 
much heavier rails on the English well-ballasted lines outlast light rails on 
the same road-bed. A light, yielding rail, however, on a mud road-bed, will 
adapt itself to the churning of the sleepers, and take a bearing on the whole 
of the bed. It will not permanently set when sprung and twisted, and if it 
becomes bent on a very bad line, it will not be both rigid and rough, but 
will be somewhat elastic under the wheels. It appears, then, that we must 
have either tolerable ballasting and drainage, — a good read-bed, — or else a 
shallow and yielding rail. Since our managers are either too limited as to 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. on 


means, or too unwise when they have the means, to institute the funda- 
mental remedy, the compromise is generally a low rail, which, for the very 
reason of its shallowness, cannot be spliced at its signally vulnerable point, 
the joint. So the difficulty engendered by a low rail is almost as serious as 
that sought to be avoided by the low rail—the disconnected joints soon 
wear and hammer themselves and the machinery to pieces. Now, several 
hundred rail-joints have been invented, some of which reaily preserve, to a 
considerable extent, the continuity of the rails as if they were a continuous 
bar; but those that do so run into two obstacles, which are nearly fatal: 1. 
The cost of thoroughly jointing a low rail is too enormous, in the eyes of 
those who will use low rails, at all to warrant its adoption. 2. The neces- 
sary weight and rigidity of a good joint are so great as to destroy the very 
effect sought in the low rail—continuous elasticity. Now, the continuous 
rail is the compromise between these almost irreconcilable elements. It is a 
continuous splice, not, indeed, preserving the full strength of the bar at the 
joint, but preventing much deflection. and equalizing what there is; that is, 
bringing down both rail ends alike. This it does without adding rigidity, 
for the weight is the same at all parts. The cost of the continuous rail is 
five dollars a ton over that of the solid rail of equal weight. This makes 
the joints cost about a dollar each; and we know of no other joint, costing 
a dollar, which so securely fastens the ends of low rails, — for the lower the 
rail the greater the difficulty in jointing it.— New York Times. 


DO RAILWAY RAILS EVER WEAR OUT? 


Mr. Herapath, editor of Herapath’s Railway Journal (England), states, on 
the authority of some of the most practical and experienced railway men of 
Great Britain, that railway rails, unless at stations and places where there is 
sliding, do not sensibly wear out. This statement, however, applies to rails 
made of good iron, — not inferior iron tinned over, as it were, with good, — 
and to rails on the middle of a line, over which trains are run in the ordi- 
nary way. Experiments have been made by taking up and carefully weigh- 
ing rails in this position after twelve months, wear, or more, which were 
found not sensibly to have lost any weight during that time, thereby proving 
that there could have been no sensible wear. 


THE BISSEL LOCOMOTIVE TRUCK. 


The common locomotive truck consists of a frame, holding the four front 
wheels, and turning on a pivot, or king-bolt, like the fore axletree of a 
wagon. Although such a truck moves round a curve more easily than if it 
were rigidly parallel to other shafts and did not turn on its king-bolt, yet its 
action is hard, like that of a car whose wheels are nearer together on one 
side than on the other when moving ona straight track. With the Bissel 
improvement, the truck does not turn on its own centre, or pivot, but slides 
sidewise under the engines, being held by a radius-arm extending back under 
the engine, and fastened to a pin half-way between the centre of the truck 
and the forward driving-shaft. Thus all the axles of the engine are more 
nearly radial to whatever curve the train strikes; the wheels are less likely to 
run off, and move with less friction; shorter curves may be passed, and the 
flanges wear less. The chief improvement is, however, that one pair of 
wheels may be used instead of two pairs, which are necessary in the old 


os ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


truck. Another incidental and considerable advantage is, that with a single 
shaft the bearing of the engine is thrown further forward, and the weight 
necessary to adhesion is thrown further back upon the driving-wheels. 


IMPROVED LOCOMOTIVES. 


The introduction of cheap steel, and the gradually spreading fact that 
combined strength and lightness at any reasonable cost will pay at once and 
handsomely as features of locomotive machinery, are leading to a signal 
improvement in the locomotive engine. At the Albany Iron Works, semi- 
steel is being largely introduced for all parts of boilers, allowing twenty-five 
per cent. increase of strength with the same weight, or twenty-five per cent. 
decrease of weight with the same strength. It is probable that a higher 
pressure will be employed, since it is economical in itself, and that boilers 
will be somewhat lightened. Steel tires of the same make are now under- 
going a so far promising trial. They will greatly add to the durability of 
engines, and decrease weight where lightness is most needed —in the parts 
unrelieved by springs, which act as a forge-hammer directly on the rail. 
The above features cost no more in semi-steel than in iron, and therefore 
should come into much more rapid use. Krupp’s Prussian steel axles — the 
best in the world — are finding favor at double the cost of iron. We do not 
hear that they ever wear out or break. They have not been in use long 
enough to show old age yet, though some have run in this country over a 
dozen years. Another decided improvement in locomotives is in the propor- 
tions of the boiler and the steam-generating apparatus. Smaller grates, 
larger combustion room, a very much larger water-circulating space, — allow- 
ing less nominal and more real heating surface,— and the modern appa-. 
ratus in the smoke-box for facilitating draft, have considerably decreased 
the consumption of fuel and the wear of boiler in the production of a given 
power. 


THE MANUFACTURE AND DEFECTS OF CAST-IRON CAR-WHEELS — 
AN IMPROVED WHEEL. 


The supply of car-wheels to railway equipment has become a distinct and 
extensive branch of the foundry business. Several very large establish- 
ments, and many smaller ones, are constantly employed in this single manu- 
facture. Wrought-iron wheels, such as are almost exclusively used in Eu- 
rope, are too expensive, according to our railway policy —a reduction in first 
cost is the leading consideration; while the flanges of wrought wheels rapidly 
cut out on our most crooked roads, rendering a harder material desirable. 
Steel tires, which are, scientifically considered, the best known for durability: 
and shape, — roundness, — are very much more expensive; and our roads 
have not yet found it expedient to introduce them. The improvement we 
shall describe will furnish many of their advantages at a very cheap rate. 

The service of car-wheels, especially on our rough roads, is very severe; 
great strength to resist side and other strains, and the incessant hammering 
of our jointless rails, and extreme hardness of the tread or rolling surface to 
prevent rapid wear, together with the greatest possible lightness, are essen- 
tial. To embody these conditions in a single casting is more difficult than 
the uninitiated would imagine; the nature of the metal itself is in most re- 
spects adverse to such a result, though in one respect it is extremely favor- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. dal 


able. There are certain kinds of strong, hard iron, which, when melted and 
suddenly brought in contact with a cold metallic surface, will ‘‘ chill; ” 
stratum of the iron about half an inch thick will be converted into white, 
fine-grained surface, of such extreme hardness that ordinary files and drills 
will make no mark on it. Such iron is poured into moulds, of which the 
part touching the tread of the wheel is a ring of metal, which chills the sur- 
face, —the rest of the wheel cools more gradually, and is only a little hard- 
ened, — for “ chilling iron ”’ always hardens when recast — so much so, that 
new admixtures of pig-iron must be added, or it will become too brittle and 
“short”? for wheels. But the wheel, while cooling, contracts unequally, 
since the thickness of its parts are different, leaving a severe and permanent 
strain —an inherent tendency to fly to pieces, which the roughing of our 
roads does not ameliorate. To make a shape, by means of corrugations of 
innumerable forms and directions, that will allow the parts to yield to this 
contracting force while cooling, so that no strain shall be left in the wheel, 
has been the subject of hundreds of patents. Again, the “ chilling iron” 
that must be used for the tread is too hard and brittle to answer the best 
purpose for the rest of the wheel, while the softer and tougher irons that are 
best to resist strains will not chill; soa single casting cannot fulfil every 
desirable condition. 

It has long been the custom of some lines to use chilled cast-iron tires on 
locomotive driving-wheels. They are much harder than wrought tires, and 
wear better; they are not so truly round as wrought iron or steel tires, which 
are turned ina lathe; their adhesion is less, and they are very heavy and 
hard on the track. Yet they are very much cheaper than wrought iron, not 
to speak of steel. Considering their immense weight, their economy in the 
long run is questionable. But this chief objection has been partially ob- 
viated by Mr. H. W. Moore, of the Union Car-Wheel Works, Jersey City, 
who has perfected a process of casting the tire hollow, thus reducing the 
weight of a four and a half feet tire from one thousand pounds to seven 
hundred and twenty pounds, and at the same time preserving its strength, 
ir not increasing its soundness. 

All these facts bring us to the consideration of Mr. Moore’s improved car- 
wheel, which is simply a nave or centre-piece of tough, strong cast iron, and 
a hollow. tire of hard chilling iron. The two, when fastened together by the 
very simple process used in fastening the same kind of tire to driving- 
wheels, form a complete cast-iron wheel, which possesses the following very 
obvious and very important advantages: First, The nave, or centre-plate, 
never wears out, it being practically a part of the axle. When acommon 
— is worn out, the whole of it is used up, and, being all of “ chilling 
iron,” cannot be recast into wheels without a large admixture of pig-iron. 
W ith the new wheel, the tire only is removed when it wears out. Second, 
The nave, being subject to no wear whatever, may outlast the axle, and be 
fitted to new axles as the latter wear out. Third, The nave may be made of 
softer iron than the tread or tire requires, and so be less liable to breakage. 
Fourth, The tire may be of harder iron than is required for the nave, and so 
chill deeper and harder, and wear longer. Fifth, The wheel as a whole is 
stronger, no strain being left in it by the unequal contraction of the metal 
as it cools. As before mentioned, the great trouble has been that the quickly 
cooling tire and the thicker and slower cooling hub cause a severe and per- 
manent rupturing force to be left in the wheel when it is a single casting. 
In this case, the thin, hollow tire cools without strain, and the nave may be 


Se ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


easily proportioned so as to cool without strain; besides, the tire is a hoop 
and binder in this case, rather than a rupturing force. Sixth, The expense 
and time required to put on a new tire are less than- half what are re- 
quired to put on anew wheel. The latter process involves taking out the 
axle, putting it into a press, forcing off the wheel, forcing on a new one by 
screw or hydraulic power, and replacing the wheel. Putting on a new tire 
where the wheel is outside of the journal, as on locomotives and some ten- 
ders and cars, does not necessitate taking out the axle at all; the engine or 
car is simply jacked up, a few nuts are unscrewed, the old tire is slipped off, 
and a new one slipped on. Seventh, If the tire breaks, the car has still a 
wheel to run on, the broad periphery of the centre-plate or nave being left, 
which is less likely to cause running off the track than a broken solid wheel. 
Eighth, Not only is the wheel vastly better in every respect than a solid 
wheel, but the expense of this generally most expensive department of re- 
pairs is greatly reduced. The price of a common wheel being thirteen dol- 
lars and fifty cents, the price of the double wheel is sixteen dollars, of which 
the tire, turned out and furnished with four bolts, costs nine dollars. Two 
common wheels cost twenty-seven dollars, while the first double wheel and 
a new tire for the old centre of the double wheel cost twenty-five dollars, 
saving two dollars on the two sets of wheels. Supposing the old nave to 
outlast three tires, six dollars and fifty cents are saved; and supposing it to 
outlast six tires, — which is a reasonable supposition, —twenty dollars are 
saved; that is, compared with the cost of six common wheels, the new 
wheel will have cost nothing, and will have saved six dollars and fifty cents 
besides. When these figures are applied to the thousands of car-wheels re- 
newed yearly on our great lines, not to speak of the grand aggregate on all 
the railways in the country, the saving promised by this improvement is to 
be represented by millions of dollars. — N. Y. Times. 


ON THE ACTION OF HEAT-DIFFUSERS. 


The following paper has been communicated to the British Association by 
Mr. Arthur Taylor: 

Mr. Williams and others have found that an increased effect was produced 
by the fuel burnt in steam-boilers when what have been called Heat-Diffus- 
ers were placed in the tubes or flues. The apparatus in question consists 
generally of metallic bands or ribands, twisted into spirals, or bent in the 
direction of their length into zigzag forms, and placed in the tubes or flues, 
the professed object of this addition being to break up or disturb the current 
of heated gases passing through the tubes, and to cause every portion of the 
gases to impinge on the heating surfaces, — the cause given for the increased 
effect produced being, that when a current of heated gases passes through 
a tube under ordinary circumstances, only the exterior portions of the col- 
umns come in contact with the sides of the tube, and that in thus disturbing 
the current by obstacles to its direct course a more perfect contact of the 
gases with the surfaces is produced. The question which I wish to raise 
is, whether this is the true explanation of the effect produced by diffusers, 
deflecting bridges, ete. I think it can hardly be admitted that each mole- 
cule of a gas passing through a tube follows a course parallel with the axis; 
for those in contact with the sides of the tube will be so impeded by friction 
as to have a much slower motion than those in the centre; just as in a river 
the current near the banks is less rapid than that in the middle of the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 35 


stream; and that as in the river, so in the tube, a series of eddies will be 
formed, tending to bring all portions of the gas in contact with the sides of 
the tube. This peculiar motion of gases in a tube may very clearly be 
observed in the smoke issuing from the funnel of a steamer, the smoke 
retaining the eddying motion which it had in the funnel for some time after 
leaving it. 

These considerations led me to consider the mere disturbance of the cur- 
rents as inadequate to explain the increased evaporation observed, and to 
attribute it to a very different cause. Gases do not radiate the heat which 
they contain; so that the only mode in which a gas can communicate its heat 
to a surface is by contact or convection. This is, in the present practice, the 
only mode in which those heating surfaces of a boiler which are not exposed 
to the radiation of the fire, or flame, can abstract heat from the products of 
combustion; but if in a flue or tube a solid body be introduced, it will be- 
come heated by contact with the gases, and will radiate the heat. thus 
received to the sides of the flue. Now these diffusers, etc., exactly fulfil 
these conditions; and I, therefore, attribute their effect mainly, if not en- 
tirely, to the function which they must fulfil in absorbing heat from the 
gases by contact, and then radiating this heat to the sides of the tubes or 
flues. And I think it will be admitted, that the amount of heat thus con- 
veyed to the water may be very important, when it is considered that the 
temperature of the gases in the tubes of a boiler, at five or six inches 
from the fire-box tube-plates, is about eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit; 
and that these radiators will consequently have a temperature of several 
hundred degrees above that of the surfaces in contact with the water in the 
boiler, and that a very active radiation- must consequently take place from 
one to the other. This principle once established, the modes of application 
in practice are, of course, endless; and I will only mention that I do not see 
any advantage in making these radiating surfaces of such a form as to im- 
pede the draught,— especially in the case of marine boilers, — but would 
rather choose the form which would give the greatest amount of radiating 
surface, and offer the least impediment to the free passage of the products 
of combustion through the tubes. Perhaps as effective a form as any for 
placing in the tubes of boilers would be a simple straight band of metal, or 
a wider band bent in the direction of its breadth at an angle of sixty degrees. 
In the case of marine boilers, they should be made so as to draw out easily, 
to enable the tubes to be swept. 


ON THE COMBUSTION OF WET FUEL. 


The following is an abstract of a paper read before the American Associa- 
tion, 1860, by Professor B. Silliman, Jr., ‘On the Combustion of Wet Fuel 
in the Furnace devised by Moses Thompson.” In all ordinary modes of 
combustion, it is well known that the use of wet fuelis attended with a very 
great loss of heat, rendered latent in the conversion of water into steam. 
As the most perfectly air-dried wood still contains about twenty-five per 
cent. of water, the term wet fuel might seem appropriate to all fuels but 
mineral coal and charcoal. But, technically, this term is restricted to sub- 
stances like peat, and those residual products of the arts, which, like wet tan, 
begasse, and spent dye-stuffs, contain at least one-half, and often more than 
half, their weight of water. Until a recent period, the attempt to consume 
these products as sources of heat has been attended with uneconomical results, 


36 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


or total failure. It is the object of this paper to describe a mode of combus- 
tion, in which, by a modification in the form of furnace, the combustion of 
wet fuel is not only rendered consistent with the best economical results, but 
which involves chemical reactions never before, it is believed, successfully 
applied for such purposes, and which is deserving of particular notice from 
a scientific as well as from a practical point of view. 

It is a well-established fact in chemistry, that the affinity of carbon for 
oxygen at high temperatures is so strong, that if oxygen is not present in a 
free state, any compound containing oxygen, which happens to be present, 
is decomposed, in order to satisfy this affinity. This fact is well illustrated 
in the familiar case of the blast-furnace, where this affinity is employed to 
deprive the ores of iron of their oxygen in the process of reduction to metallic 
iron. 

In the first stages of combustion, in wet fuels, the chief products given off 
are steam from the drying of the wet mass, smoke, or volatilized carbon, and 
oxide of carbon, with, of course, a variable proportion of carbonic acid and 
earburetted hydrogen. These products, in all ordinary furnaces, pass on 
together into the stack, carrying with them the heat which they have ab- 
sorbed and rendered latent. The problem presented is then to recover the 
heat thus locked up and lost; and by the furnace now under consideration 
this is accomplished by shutting off almost entirely the access of the outer 
air, and causing the wet fuel to supply its own supporter of combustion, 
drawn from the decomposition of the vapor of water at a high temperature, 
by its reaction with free carbon and the oxide of carbon. . 

The practical solution of this problem was first successfully accomplished, 
as appears from a decision of Patent Commissioner Holt, by the late Moses 
Thompson, in 1854. The controversial questions growing out of this inven- 
tion are entirely foreign to our present purpose, and in no way affect its prac- 
tical or scientific value. Suffice it to say, in passing, that we find in this 
invention another instance of a truth already so often signalized in the 
history of inventions, that important results are often obtained, of the high- 
est value in promoting material prosperity and the welfare of society, by 
those who are guided in their search only by the result in view, and not by 
any exact knowledge of the scientific principles involved. 

Mr. Thompson seems to have been inspired with the conviction that if he 
could bring the products from the combustion of wet fuel together in a place 
hot enough for the purpose, and from which the atmospheric air was ex- 
cluded, they would, as he expresses it in his patent, mutually ‘consume 
each other.” This notion was realized, and the reiiction secured between the 
elements of water and the carbon of smoke, or the oxide of carbon, in a part 
of the furnace called by the inventor the mixing-chamber. 

Wherever that place may be situated, or however constructed, the one 
essential thing about it is, that it should be a very hot place, and one to 
which the atmospheric air can have no direct access until it has passed by 
and through the burning fuel. It is, in fact, a retort, or place for combina- 
tion and reaction, and may be a distinct chamber or flue, or only a recess or 
enlargement, greater or less, of the main furnace. Wherever it may be 
placed, or however built, it must meet the essential conditions of a high 
temperature, and of atmospheric isolation. In this mixing chamber, then, 
the important chemical reaction before insisted on must be set up. The 
vapor of water is decomposed, furnishing its oxygen to the highly heated 
carbon to form carbonic acid, while the oxide of carbon is in like manner 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 37 


exalted to the same condition, and any excess of carbon forms, with free 
hydrogen, marsh gas, or light carburetted hydrogen. The vapor of water is 
thus made to give up not only its constituent elements to form new com- 
pounds with oxygen, producing in the change great heat, but a great part 
of the heat absorbed by the water in becoming steam is also liberated in this 
change of its physical and chemical condition. Moreover, as all these 
products of combustion and of chemical reaction pass together over the 
bridge-wall of the furnace into a space from which atmospheric air is not 
excluded, it then and there happens that any free hydrogen, light carbu- 
retted hydrogen, or oxide of carbon which have previously escaped com- 
bustion, take fire and burn, yielding up their quota of heat to the general 
ageregate. e 

Such is the intensity of heat in that portion of the furnace where these 
reactions take place, that only the most solid structures of refractory fire- 
bricks will endure it, and the color seen throughout that portion of the 
furnace is of the purest white. 

In view of the facts already stated, it is easy to understand why it is that 
when the reactions described are once set up, the admission of a free current 
of atmospheric air should immediately check the energy of the combustion, 
and soon result in total suspension of the peculiar energy of this furnace. 
The air containing only one-fifth of its bulk of oxygen gas, the active agent 
in combustion, the access of so large a proportion of cold air, four-fifths of 
which are not only indifferent, but positively prejudicial, from the quantity 
of heat it absorbs, it happens that the temperature of the mixing-chamber 
is rapidly reduced below the point at which carbon can decompose vapor of 
water, and the instant that point is reached the arrival of fresh supplies of 
steam completes the decline of energy, and the furnace commences forth- 
with to belch forth from its stack dense volumes of smoke and watery 
vapor. When in proper action, not a particle of smoke is visible from the 
stack of a furnace in which wet fuel is burning, and, what is more remark- 
able, the reactions are so evenly balanced that no wreaths of watery vapor 
are observed; while, in the earlier stages of combustion, before the proper 
temperature in the mixing-chamber is reached, both these products are seen 
in great abundance. 

The language of the inventor, in describing the construction of his furnace 
for burning begasse, is as follows: 

“T build two furnaces, side by side, each nearly square in its horizontal 
section. Towards the top I draw in the wall in such a manner as to form a 
kind of dome, with a sufficient opening at the top to feed the begasse. In 
each furnace-chamber there should be a partition of fire-brick, extending 
across it from front to back, and rising nearly to the top, dividing it into 
two nearly equal parts. The main chamber of each furnace should be 
divided into two parts, upper and lower, by a fire-brick grating about one- 
fifth the height of the furnace above the hearth, the back end of the grate 
being a littie lower than the front. 

“In each furnace, at the front, on each side of the central partition, and 
immediately under the front end of the grate, should be doors for feeding 
wood and other dry fuel, and directly under these doors, at the hearth of the 
lower chamber, should be draught openings, capable of adjustment, to sup- 
port combustion in the lower chamber. Extending across the back of both 
furnaces, and opening into both by flues, is a mixing-chamber, into which 
all the gases from both furnaces enter in a highly heated state, and mix and 

4 


38 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


consume each other on their way to the boiler and stack. This chamber 
should be about one-half the capacity of all the fire-chambers, and it should 
extend down about as low as the back end of the grate. The flue through 
which the products of combustion pass out of this chamber and under 
the boiler should be in section about one square foot to forty cubic feet of 
mixing-chamber. 

‘‘The operation of my furnace is as follows: A hot fire of dry fuel is kin- 
dled in the lower or fire-chambers of the furnaces, and after it has been con- 
tinued till the masonry is well heated, the chamber above the grate is fed with 
the begasse or other wet fuel. This hot fire in the fire-chamber, especially 
towards the front of it, under the principal mass of the wet fuel, must be 
preserved throughout the operation. The heat from the masonry and the 
fire-chamber will be communicated to the wet fuel, which will cause steam 
and other gases to issue from it and mix with the intensely hot gases of 
combustion from the fire-chamber, and in a short time the mixing-chamber 
will present intense combustion and heat, the dampers of the fife-chambers 
being partially closed. The lower part of the wet charge will by degrees 
become dry and charred, and will fall through the grate prepared as above 
into the fire-chamber, and supply, or nearly supply, the place of other dry 
fuel in preserving the fire in this chamber; and the wet fuel, being from 
time to time supplied, will furnish, in a highly heated state, aqueous vapors, 
which, descending through the corrugations and otherwise into the fire- 
chamber and mixing-chamber, will be decomposed, furnishing much oxygen 
to the fire, and supply the oxygen necessary to combustion of all the com- 
bustible gases issuing from the fire-chamber. If by accident the fire in the 
lower part of the furnace should predominate, the draught should be dimin- 
ished and more wet fuel added; and if by accident the fire in the fire-cham- 
ber should become too much cooled down, the draught should be let on, 
and any deficiency of dry fuel should be supplied to the fire-chamber. 
Under proper management, little or no dry fuel need be fed to the fire- 
chamber after the operation is fairly commenced—the charred matter 
falling through the open grate will supply its place; and the caloric thus 
produced by the combustion of wet fuel will be vastly greater than from 
the same quantity by measure of the same fuel when dry. In the fire- 
chamber and in the mixing-chamber, under intense heat, the carbonaceous 
gases will decompose the steam from the wet fuel, and effect complete com- 
bustion. : 

“When the operation is fairly commenced, if the water in the wet charge 
amounts to say fifty per cent. by weight of the fuel, the dampers of the fire- 
chamber should be nearly or quite closed to exclude the air; vapor from the 
wet charge will then descend through the corrugations and otherwise into 
the fire-chambers, and support the combustion therein, while other portions 
of the vapor will enter the mixing-chamber, and complete the combustion 
there. If the fuel, however, contains much smaller quantities of water, 
more air in proportion should be admitted at the damper, the object being 
to admit no more air than will supply the deficieney of the vapor.” 

It will be observed that in this mode of combustion the wet fuel is subject 
to a constant process of distillation by the fire in the ash-pit. The products 
of this distillation reict on each other in the mixine-chamber in the manner 
already described, while, at the-same time, a portion of watery vapor is 
decomposed in the ash-pit. 

Theoretically, no more heat can be venerated in this mode of combustion, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. _ wa 


than is consumed in the transformation of water into steam, and the conver- 
sion of fixed into volatile products. But it is by no means a matter of indif- 
ference whether the oxygen requisite for complete combustion is drawn 
from the atmosphere or is derived from the decomposition of water by car- 
bon and its oxide. In the former case, not only is there a great loss of heat, 
carried away by the inefficient nitrogen of the air, but the diluted oxygen 
can never produce so intense a heat with the carbon as is the result of the 
reaction of the nascent oxygen with that element. Although Mr. Thomp- 
son was no chemist, he did not fail, with his natural acumen, to perceive this 
advantage; and in his earliest patent he remarks: “ After ample experi- 
ments, I have discovered that any results that can be produced by the use of 
dry fuel are inferior to those obtained from my process in proportion to 
the quantity used, and that results like mine can only be obtained by the use 
of wet fuel . . . fed into an intensely heated chamber. Under such cir- 
cumstances, the water in the fuel, in presence of the carbonaceous sub- 
stances in the furnace, will be decomposed, giving its oxygen to the carbo- 
naceous matter, dispensing with a draft and its cooling and wasteful influence, 
and rendering the combustion so perfect that no smoke is visible.” 
Although this mode of combustion of wet fuel is now in use on many 
sugar plantations in Louisiana, and in some tanneries of Pennsylvania and 
New York, no notice of it has, so far as [am aware, appeared in the scien- 
tific journals. Iam not without personal experience of its operation on a 
large scale, having, in 1857, enjoved the opportunity of studying carefully 
the management of one of Thompson’s furnaces, in three compartments, 
built for the combustion of wet peat. That fuel contained over seventy-five 
per cent. of its whole weight of water, and was too wet for the best results. 
But with the use of one fourth part of dry wood, even this extremely wet 
and otherwise valueless fuel was rendered efficient, three cords—of one 
hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet—of wet peat, and one cord of dry 
wood, doing the work of four cords of dry wood in driving a steam boiler. 


FRICTIONAL GEARING. 


Frictional gearing is coming into successful use in Great Britain for all 
purposes, from small machinery up to the driving of the screws of steam- 
ships. Instead of one wheel driving another by the intersection or “ mash- 
ing” of the “ cogs” or teeth on their rims, the adjacent surfaces or faces of 
the wheels are grooved lengthwise, or in the direction of their motion, like 
the rolls of a rolling-mill. These grooves are V-shaped, and the friction of 
the V’s of one wheel against the sides of the V’s of the other wheel is so great 
that the one drives the other, as in the case of cogs. The friction of the 
journals of the shafts is somewhat greater than in the case of toothed gear- 
ing, but in other respects the frictional wheels seem to work most smoothly. 
The “back lash,” or rattle of teeth, especially when worn, is prevented. 
The chief economy is in first cost. The cutting of the teeth of gearing 
involves the application of abstruse mathematical principles; each side of 
each tooth is shaped to an epicycloidal curve, varying with the diameters of 
the wheels. The machines and processes required are expensive and numer- 
ous, especially in cases of beveled gearing. But the preparation of frictional 
gearing is the most simple and straightforward work of the turning-lathe. 


40 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


LARGE IRON FORGINGS. 


Mr. R. Mallet has read to the London Institution of Civil Engineers a 
paper ‘‘ On the Coéfficients of Elasticity and of Rupture in Wrought Iron, in 
relation to the volume of the metallic mass, its metallurgic treatment, and 
the axial direction of its constituent crystals.” 

Iron was formerly entirely worked under tilt-hammers; the process of 
rolling was then introduced; and now, in consequence of modern engineer- 
ing requirements, masses of iron, of considerable magnitude, were produced 
by faggoting: together, under heavy forge-hammers, from large numbers 
either of bars or slabs grouped together. The masses were not, however, 
found to possess ultimate strength in proportion to the number of bars of 
which they were composed; in fact, it appeared that the strength of the 
mass became less in some proportion as the bulk became greater. This was 
admitted as a fact, but no one had hitherto attempted to show experimen- 
tally what function of the magnitude was the strength of a given kind of 
iron, manufactured in a given manner; or how the same forged mass, when 
very large, differed in strength in different directions, with reference to its 
form; or how the mechanical part of the process of manufacture of the 
same iron affected its actual strength, either as a rolled bar or as a forged 
mass. 

Addressing himself to this investigation, the author dealt generally with 
three points of the inquiry, viz.: 

1. What difference did the same large bars of unwrought iron afford to 
forces of tension and of compression, when prepared by rolling, or by ham- 
mering under the steam-hammer? 

2. How much weaker, per unit of section, was the iron of very massive 
hammer forgings, than the original iron bars of which the mass was com- 
posed ? 

3. What was the average, or safe, measure of strength, per unit of sec- 
tion, of the iron composing such very massive forgings, as compared with 
the acknowledged mean strength of good British bar iron? 

We have not space for the illustrative details, but the conclusions deduced 
were, that practically the iron of very heavy shafts, forged guns, huge 
cranks, and other similar masses, might be expected to become permanently 
set and crippled at a trifle above seven tons per square inch, and to give 
way by fracture at about fifteen tons per square inch by tension, and to 
completely lose form at pressures of from fifteen to eighteen tons per square 
inch. Therefore it followed that, allowing a deduction of one-half, as sanc- 
tioned by practice, from the elastic limits of tension and of pressure, for the 
margin of safety, the iron of such forged masses should not be trusted for 
impulsive strains exceeding about one and three-fourths tons per square 
inch of tension, and about four and a half tons per square inch of pressure, 
or for passive tensile strains of three and a half tons per square inch, or for 
passive pressure beyond nine tons per square inch, 


THIN CAST IRON. 


At a recent meeting of the Manchester Philosophical Society, Mr. Fair- 
barn, the President, exhibited two large pans of cast iron, procured from 
China, where they are used for boiling rice. The metal, which is at the 
strongest part only one-tenth of an inch in thickness possessed considerable 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 41 


malleability. The President remarked that the art of making such large 
castings of thin metal was unknown in England. 


STRENGTH OF GUN-METAL. 


““We were never so powerfully impressed,” says the Liverpool Albion, 
“with the improvements in the manufacture of gun-metal, as during a 
recent visit to the Mersey Steel and Iron Works, where we witnessed various 
attempts to burst a two-pounder gun. The experiments took place in a 
chamber excavated in the sandstone rock, covered over with loose sheets of 
iron, which, of course, made a considerable rattle when each explosion took 
place. The gun in question, which is five feet two inches in the bore, and 
weighs somewhere about four hundred pounds, after being charged with 
one pound of powder, was filled to the muzzle with one-pound balls, and 
fired by means of a string. When the smoke had cleared away, it was found 
that the gun was all right, and that so great had been the force of the ex- 
plosion that many of the shot were shattered, and others deeply buried in 
the rock. The gun was again charged, and filled with balls, and a cylinder, 
or round bar of iron, which projected from the mouth. It was then fired, 
with equally satisfactory results. The next trial was with one and a half 
pounds of powder and three cylinders, weighing seventy-six pounds all to- 
gether. This is a test which few guns are calculated to withstand; but, 
though the noise of the explosion was very great, the metal of the gun was 
so tough that it remained uninjured. The weight of the metal was after- 
wards gradually increased to nearly ninety pounds, with safety. 


EXPERIMENTS WITH CAST IRON. 


A series of interesting experiments has recently been carried on, under 
the managemeat of Colonel Eardley Wilmot, Superintendent of the Royal 
Gun Factories at Woolwich, England, with a view to determine the most suita- 
ble variety of iron for casting cannon; and the results have been printed in the 
form of a parliamentary report. Information regarding the several brands 
of iron experimented with would be of little interest to our readers, but 
there is other information in it interesting to all those who work in: cast 
iron, and the substance of this we give, as follows: The general mean 
tensile strength of 850 specimens of cast iron was 23,257 pounds on the inch; 
the transverse strength of 564 specimens was 7,102; while the crushing 
strength of 273 specimens was 91,061 pounds, and the torsion but 6,056. 

It was found, during these experiments, that when the specific gravity of 
cast iron was 7°3, and upwards, it was too hard, and did not possess suffi- 
cient elasticity for casting cannon. A marked superiority was the result in 
bars cast horizontally over those cast vertically. Bars which were cooled 
quickly were also much stronger than others cooled slowly. 

It was also found that, by repeated re-melting of the cast iron, its quality 
was greatly improved. This effect, however, was not so marked when 
large masses of several tons were operated upon at once. It is believed 
that by re-melting, although such impurities as phosphorus, suiphur, and 
silica, may not be expelled, some of the graphite in the iron is converted 
into combined carbon, which enables the contraction and crystallization of 
the metal to be more complete. But if the melted iron is allowed to cool 
very slowly, the carbon, it is thought by some, is reconverted into graphite, 

4* 


42 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and the iron becomes soft. Repeated melting, then quick cooling, and hori- 
zontal casting, greatly improve cannon, and all articles made of cast iron. 


HOW THE ARMSTRONG GUN IS MANUFACTURED. 


A visitor to the works, who has never seen an Armstrong gun, must, as 
he witnesses the successive stages of its manufacture, be sorely puzzled to 
conceive what it will look like when completed; and scarcely less is the 
surprise of any one who has seen the finished piece, at the strange shapes 
which its component parts assume during the various processes. Let us 
begin at the beginning, and observe the various steps, from first to last, in 
the creation of the most perfect piece of ordnance the world has ever seen. 

Imagine a very long, thin bar of the finest iron, some two inches square, 
and one hundred and twenty feet in length — that is the basis of a twenty- 
five-pounder. For convenience in the manufacture, this bore is divided 
into three pieces, about forty feet in length. A hundred-pounder requires 
three pieces, each of ninety feet in length. The manufacture commences 
in the forging shop, a vast, dingy shed, where there is an incessant din of 
hammers and roaring of mighty furnaces, where blocks and bars of iron 
lie scattered in seeming confusion on every side —here almost transparent 
at white-heat, there glowing red-hot; in one corner sending out showers 
of sparks under the discipline of a huge steam-hammer, in another hissing 
and sputtering under a stream; where stalwart, grimmy men, with uprolled 
shirt-sleeves, visors, and leather aprons, are seen looming through the 
smoke, or, in the full glare of the fires, tossing about red-hot bars with the 
indifference of salamanders, and making the anvils ring with thirty-Cyclops 
power. 

We fix our eyes on a long narrow furnace, in which lie a number of the 
iron bars we spoke of. Suddenly the door is opened, and a fierce Jurid gleam 
of light is cast through the shop. One of the men scizes the end of a bar 
in a pair of pincers, drags it forth, and makes it fast to a roller which stands 
immediately before the furnace, and the diameter of which is equal to the 
rough-made tube of a twenty-five-pounder when first rolled. The roller is 
put in motion —the bar is slowly and closely wound around it, just as one 
might wind a piece of thread round areel. The roller being turned on one 
end, the spiral tube — No. one coil it is termed —is knocked off, restored to 
white-heat in another furnace, — for it has cooled somewhat in the rolling, — 
and then flattened down and welded under one of the steam-hammers, till 
only about half as long as it was. For a twenty-five-pounder, the iength of 
the coil after this process is two and a half feet; and three such coils are 
welded together to form the tube. 

Before that operation is performed, however, each coil is bored in the 
inside, and pared on the outside, to within a very little of its proper diame- 
ter, so that the slightest flaw in the welding, if any exist, may be detected. 
Having passed this test, a couple of coils, brought to a proper heat by being 
placed end to end in a jet of flame from a blast-furnace, are welded by 
violent blows from a huge iron battering-ram. A third coil is added to the 
other two in the same manner, and the tube is complete. Over this a second 
tube, which has been prepared just in the same way, is passed while red-hot, 
and, shrinking as it cools, becomes tightly fastened. This is termed ‘‘ shrink- 
ing on.” Over this again is placed a short, massive ring of forged iron, to 
which the trunnions or handles of the gun are attached. 


-MECHANIGS AND USEFUL ARTS. 43: 


~The breech, which has now to be added, is composed of several iron slabs, 
something like the staves of a barrel, which are bent into a cylindrical form, 
and welded at the edges, when red-hot, under the steam-hammer. In the 
breech, the fibre of the metal runs in the direction of the length of the gun, 
while in the other parts it winds round and round transversely. This is 
done to give greater strength to the breech in sustaining the whole back- | 
ward thrust of the explosion. The breech thus formed is ‘‘ shrunk on” to 
the rest of the gun; and to add still more to its strength, two double coils of 
wrought iron are rolled on with the fibre at right angles to that of the 
breech underneath. The piece now exhibits very much the appearance of 
what is called a three-draw telescope —the tube, the trunnion-piece, and 
the breech representing the three “‘ draws” of the glass when pulled out. 

So much for the rough work of the gun; we now come to the finer and 
_more delicate process. Having been pared down on the outside to its proper 
size, the gun passes to the measurers, who, with an instrument called a 
micrometer, measure each part with mathematical accuracy. The slightest 
deviation of any portion from its exact size, even to the fraction of a hair’s 
breadth, is rigidly pointed out, and has to be amended. The boring and 
rifling of the piece are next performed, in a large, tidy, well-lighted room, 
where there is no noise, or smoke, or confusion, as in the forging shop. 
The gun is placed erect in the boring-machine, and revolves gently round 
the big gimlet, which slowly but surely wends its way downwards, scooping 
out the superfluous metal from the interior of the tube. 

Four pieces can be bored at once by each machine. This is the lengthiest 
process the gun has to go through. It has to be performed twice, each time 
occupying six hours. First, the gun is-bored to within a ;o)55 of an inch 
in its proper diameter; and the second time it is finished. The rifling is 
performed in a turning-lathe, and occupies some five hours. There are 
thirty-eight fine, sharp grooves, of a peculiar angular shape —“ with the 
driving side angular,” in the words of the inventor, “and the opposite side 
rounded ;” and the turn of the rifling is very slight. 

Where the touch-hole of an ordinary gun would be, a square hole is cut 
for the introduction of the vent-piece, or stopper, which, with the breech- 
screw, completes the gun. The stopper is a circular piece of steel, faced 
with copper, which fits into the end of the rifled barrel with the most exact 
nicety. Upon this little piece of metal depends, in a great measure, the 
efficiency of the gun; because, unless it hermetically closed the cavity, a 
portion of the explosive force would escape, and the discharge would be 
weakened. The copper facing of the stopper is prepared with great care. 
It has to be sharpened with a file afte so many rounds, and a duplicate 
accompanies every gun. The touch-hole runs through the vent-piece down 
into the chamber of the gun. The breech of the gun receives a powerful 
hollow screw, which presses against the vent-piece, and is easily tightened or 
loosened by means of a common weighted handle. When the stopper is 
out, the gun is a hollow tube from end to end. —Chumbers’s Journal. 


PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THE ARMSTRONG GUN. 


The following is a description of the practical effects of the Armstrong 
gun, as displayed in recent experiments in England,—the target selected 
being a Martello tower on the channel coast: The guns employed were a 
forty-pounder of thirty-one cwt., an eighty-pounder of sixty-three cwt., and 


44 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC @WISCOVERY. 


a short hundred-pounder, weighing only fifty-three ewt. The distance was 
one thousand and thirty-two yards, and the projectiles employed were partly 
solid shot and partly percussion shells. The tower was built of very strong 
brickwork, the thickness of the walls being seven feet three inches on the 
land side, and nine feet on the side next the sea. It measured forty-cight 
feet in diameter at the base, and was upwards of thirty feet high. Like 
all other Martello towers, it was arranged to carry one heavy gun en bar- 
bette. The roof, or platform bearing this gun, consisted of a massive vault, 
of great strength, supported by the walls and by a solid pillar of brickwork 
occupying the centre of the tower. The chief merit which has been claimed 
for Martello towers is, that, from their circular form, they deflect all shot 
which strike them in the curve; but the accuracy of rifled guns has rendered 
this advantage of small importance, while the exposed condition of the gun 
on the top would render it entirely useless against arms of precision. The | 
experiments commenced by a few rounds of solid shot from the forty-pounder 
and the eighty-pounder, and of blind shells from the hundred-pounder, the 
object being to ascertain the penetration of these various projectiles. The 
eighty-pounder shot was found to pass quite through the wall, into the 
tower, piercing seven feet three inches of brickwork; the others lodged in 
the wall at the depth of about five feet. Live shells were then fired, and 
with so much effect, that, after eight or ten rounds from each gun, the interior 
of the tower became exposed to view. The firing was then suspended to 
enable the commander-in-chief, who was present, to examine the breach, and 
also to allow of the execution of a photograph. The fire was resumed in the 
evening, and continued at intervals on the following day. The centre pillar, 
supporting the bomb-proof roof, was speedily knocked away, but the struc- 
ture was so compact that the vault continued to stand, and was only brought 
down by a succession of shells exploded in the brickwork. Nothing could 
exceed the precision with which these shells were thrown. The broken sec- 
tion of the vault was itself but a small object to hit; but this was done with 
such unerring certainty that the very spot selected was almost invariably 
struck. The total number of shot and shell fired against the tower was 
one hundred and seventy, of which only a small proportion was from the 
hundred-pounder. The ultimate result was, that the land side of the tower 
was completely destroyed, and the interior space filled with the debris of the 
vaulted roof. The opposite side was also injured, but the mound of fallen 
materials saved it from destruction. We may infer from these valuable ex- 
periments that no species of masonry or brickwork penetrable by percussion 
shells will in future be available in fortification. Nor is it conceivable how 
wooden ships are to withstand the effects of such projectiles. The hundred- 
pounded gun used on this occasion is probably the most formidable weapon 
ever yet produced. Its shell, which weighs one hundred pounds, contains 
eight pounds of powder; and yet the weight of the gun with which this tre- 
mendous projectile is discharged is less than that of the ordinary thirty-two 
pounder, the weight of which is fifty-six hundred weight 


THE NEW WHITWORTH GUN. 


A short time since, the gun invented by Sir William Armstrong was gen- 
erally acknowledged to have thrown all former achievements in the construc- 
tion of artillery into the shade; but within the past year a weapon has been 
brought out by Mr. Whitworth, of England, which, it is claimed, attains 
results hitherto considered beyond the range of possibility. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 45 


There are two great points as to which Mr. Whitworth’s barrels differ from 
Sir William Armsirong’s. In the first place, they are not, as his are, provided 
witha chamber in which the charge reposes, but are rifled throughout, from 
breech to muzzle. The great advantage of this is, that any amount of load- 
ing, and any length of projectile, can be employed; whereas, in Sir William 
Armstrong’s, the charge has to be invariably accommodated to the size of the 
chamber. Mr. Whitworth says that there would not be the least difficulty 
in firing a projectile half the length of the barrel, should occasion require it; 
and he actually contemplates firing a two hundred pound shot out of his 
eighty-pound gun, when it is duly furnished with the carriage which is now 
being prepared for it. In the next place, instead of being fluted with a num- 
ber of little sharp-edged grooves, the new barrel is a simple hexagon, with 
its sides made perfectly smooth, so as to offer the least possible resistance to 
a body passing over their surface, and thus obviating the dangers which 
might otherwise result from so considerable a pitch of rifling as that which 
Mr. Whitworth employs. The pitch of rifling in the three-pounder is one 
inch in forty; and thus the projectile makes one and a half revolutions before 
leaving the barrel, and the most intense rotatory motion, and, consequently, 
the greatest accuracy of flight, are thus obtained. Notwithstanding this violent 
twist in the barrel, which some people have imagined must lead to frequent 
explosions, Mr. Whitworth has contrived that there shall be extremely little 
friction. This is managed by the projectile fitting the barrel, and being 
allowed to slip over its surfaces, instead of being made slightly larger than 
the barrel, and being thus forced to cut into its edges. 

In the Armstrong gun, the projectile, in forcing its way out, drives its 
leaden coating into the grooves of the barrel. In the Whitworth gun, the 
projectile glides over the surfaces of the barrel, and passes out with a very 
inconsiderable degree of resistance. The form of projectile which is found 
to answer best, and with which the great distances have been accomplished, 
is an oblong conical bolt, rifled so as to fitthe barrel. In the three-pounder 
it is about nine inches Jong, and in shape is like a little cucumber with one of 
its round ends cut off, and six spiral slices cut longitudinally in its rind, — 
these being, of course, for the purpose of fitting the hexagonal bore. The 
length of the projectile, however, is not an essential point, and so long as its 
rifle exactly fits the barrel through which it is to pass, it may be longer or 
shorter, or a perfect sphere, as convenience or fancy may suggest. When the 
gun is to be loaded, the breech of the cannon screws off, and the bolt is 
pushed into the barrel. At its back is placed a tin cartridge, similarly rifled, 
and so arranged as to protrude slightly from the barrel, till the cannon’s 
breech is again screwed on; so that, when the gun is fastened up, the car- 
tridges line that part of it at which its breech and body join, and prevent the 
possibility of the slightest escape of air or powder through any interstice 
that might be occasioned by an imperfect fitting of the screw. It has also 
the advantage of confining the powder at the moment of explosion, and so 
saving the gun’s metal from the full strain of pressure to which it must 
otherwise be exposed. . 

But the cartridge has still a farther use. At the end where it touches the 
projectile it is furnished with a little lump of lubricating matter, which is 
disbursed by the explosion over the interior of the barrel, and cleans it for 
the next discharge, besides effectually preventing the least windage. Two 
hundred rounds can be fired without the barrel fouling; and the great incon- 
venience of having to sponge out the barrel after every shot, and of being 
obliged to carry water with the gun for this purpose, is altogether avoided. 


46 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


In action, where time is everything, the gain would be enormous; and owing 
to this, and to the simplicity of its other details, the guns could no doubt easily 
be fired two or three times in a minute, and their execution must necessarily 
prove immense. Each of them is fitted with the necessary screws for shifting 
their aim, and a few turns of a handle brings them instantaneously to bear 
upon any given point with the utmost nicety, — the whole being easily within 
the management of a single man. 

Some experiments with Whitworth’s guns, of different calibres, are thus 
described in the London Times: The three-pounder, which looks more like 
an elegant telescope than a deadly instrument of destruction, was first fired 
at three degrees of elevation, and its shot then fell somewhat short of a mile, 
varying from 1,600 to 1,500 yards, but in no instance deviating more than two 
yards from the true line of fire. Two shots out of nine actually fell on the 
line, and five only half a yard on one side. When the three-pounder was 
raised to twenty degrees of elevation, its range was about 6,600 yards; and 
out of three shots fired, two fell precisely on two parallel lines, within six 
feet of one another. The experiments with the twelve-pounder were equally 
remarkable. At twenty degrees of elevation it ranged from 6,818 to 6,339 
yards; at five degrees of elevation, it averaged 2,300, and threw all its shot 
within two and a half yards of the true line of fire. 

Perhaps the most beautiful part of the performance was that in which 
Mr. Whitworth showed how ecapitally his bolts could be made to rico- 
chet. The spectators were ranged on the sandy ridges about a hundred 
yards from the shore. More than a mile and a half away might be descried 
a little group gathered around the guns; presently came a flash, then an 
interval of a few seconds, then the rumble of the report, and almost at the 
same time the sand in front was ploughed up and dashed away right and 
left, and the bolt might be heard rushing high overhead with a sort of wild 
scream, and presently marking the spot of its final fall by a tiny splash in 
the far distance. ; 

Subsequent trials at Southport, with three, twelve, and eighty-pounders, 
according to the Times, surpassed the most sanguine expectations. ‘“‘ The 
accuracy of fire,” it says, ‘‘and length of range obtained from trifling charges 
of powder were so totally beyond what has eyer yet been attained, that it is 
evident we are upon the eve of another revolution in all relating to scientific 
gunnery, and that even the greatest results which have ever been obtained 
from the Armstrong gun are likely to be in turn surpassed by Mr. Whit- 
worth’s ordnance.” 

In the firing with the twelve-pounder field-gun, the range was marked out 
by tall thin poles placed 1000 yards apart for a total distance of 10,000 yards 
(about six miles), having short sticks placed in the road at every hundred 
yards between the chief poles. With a twelve-pounder, no experiments hav- 
ing been made expressly to test the range, a six-feet target with a two-feet 
bull’s-eye was hoisted at 1000 yards, to show the accuracy of its fire. Two 
shots were allowed to lay the gun and find the range, the second of which 
passed between the target and the pole which held it. Of the eight which 
were then fired, all went through the target within a space of four feet 
square, and two through the bull’s-eye, which, from the place where the 
gun was fired, looked searcely bigger than a man’s hand, In this result 
there was nothing astonishing to those who have seen the Armstrong fired, 
or even the very best practice made now and then with smooth-bored field 
artillery. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47 


The charge was twenty-eight ounces of powder, the service charge for an 
ordinary gun of the same calibre being fifty-six ounces. With the twenty- 
eight ounces, however, the force and velocity of the shot seemed enormous; 
the flight was low, the ricochet very great, and nearly always to the 
right, in the direction of the pitch of the riding. One shot, after passing 
through the target, first grazed the sand at 2,200 yards, then again at 3000, 
after which it went on ricochetting along the shore, touching it every 200 
or 300 yards, until it buried itself 5600 yards from the place where it was 
discharged; the elevation of the gun was 1°28, at which the recoil was very 
little, the explosion much less than that of an ordinary field-piece, and the 
noise occasioned by the flight of the shot comparatively very slight. One 
man served the gun with the utmost ease, withdrawing with screw nippers 
the tin cartridge-case from the breech after each shot. The length of Whit- 
worth’s twelve-pounder is about six feet, its bore nearly three inches, and the 
pitch or turn of the rifling the same as that of all his light guns, one com- 
plete turn in forty inches; or, roughly speAking, the shot makes nearly two 
complete revolutions on its axis before it leaves the gun. The bore of the 
three-pounder is about three and a half inches diameter. Practice with this 
three-pounder commenced with ten degrees elevation at 4000 yards, the 
charge being only seven and a half ounces of powder. The working features 
of the gun were the same as we have noticed in the twelve-pounder, except 
that one man worked the gun with much greater ease, firing it, without the 
least attempt at hurry, four times in less than four minutes. The sound of 
the projectile also was scarcely audible. 

The elevation was then altered to twenty degrees, the same charge of seven 
and a half ounces being continued for the range of posts, from 6000 to 7000 
yards distant. The first shot at this tremendous range struck the sand at 
6,760 yards, and only five yards to the left of the true line. The second 
struck at 6,784, and twelve yards from the true line in the same direction. 
The third, at 6,720, was sixteen yards out of the line. This deviation to the 
left was contrary to the usual deviation of the gun, and arose from a rather 
strong wind which had set in from the sea. The gun was therefore laid 
more to the right, and threw a fourth shot 6,910 yards distance, and only 
two yards to the left of the true line! The charge of powder was then 
increased to eight ounces, and the elevation of the gun raised to thirty-five 
degrees. The practice then made was really extraordinary. The first shot 
alighted in the sand. at 8,970 yards’ distance, only twenty-two yards to the 
right of the line. The second fell at 8,930 yards, and only ten yards left of 
the line; the third, 9,059 yards, ten yards to the right; and the fourth at the 
immense range of 9,164 yards, and twenty-two yards to the right. Midway 
between the guns and the target the flight of the projectiles over head could 
just be heard, and no more. 

The eighty-pounder was then loaded at five degrees. elevation, with twelve 
pounds of powder, with which charge it threw a ninety-pound projectile, 
with a fearful roar, a distance of 2,550 yards, when it ricochetted at right 
angles and buried itself in the sea at an immense distance. . A second shot, 
with the same charge, first grazed the sand 2,620 yards distant from the gun, 
and only two to the right of the true line. From this point it glanced 
upwards, but continued a straight course onward, alighting in the sand at a 
distance of over 6000 yards from the gun. Had this piece been mounted so 
as to permit of its being fired at a high.degree of elevation, there is not 
the least doubt but that it would have thrown its ponderous shot a distance 


48 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of 8000 or 10,000 yards, a distance that has never yet been gained by any 
gun with a projectile of such weight. 


WHITWORTH’S AND ARMSTRONG’S GUNS COMPARED. 


The following interesting comparison of the two new guns, — Whitworth’s 
and Armstrong’s, —and reflections on the effect of their general introduction 
on modern warfare, are derived from the London Army and Navy Gazette: 

If artillery be still in its infancy, it is difficult to determine who are to be 
its nurses, or under what system of education the tremendous giant is to be 
brought up. It is obvious, from the recent experiments with Armstrong’s 
and Whitworth’s guns, that the attempt made to establish a superiority of 
range and accuracy on the side of infantry provided with arms of precision 
over field-artillery, has been unsuccessful; and that the cannon relying on 
weight of metal can overpower, as before, its ancient enemy, and bids fair to 
withstand the deadly foes, which hitherto were irresistible against unaided 
artillery, namely, cavalry charge and dash of infantry. But these advan- 
tages are accompanied by certain conditions which almost amount to defects. 
There is great increase of expense; there is the necessity of special ammuni- 
tion, being carried in a special way; there is the loss of accuracy in ricochet 
fire; there is the diminution of power in discharging grape, shrapnel, and 
common case with effect; and there is the nicety of mechanism, in addition 
to the requirement, on the part of the gunners, of a certain skill over and 
above that necessary to handle ordinary field artillery or guns of posi- 
tion. As between Mr. Whitworth and Sir William Armstrong, the case 
stands thus, so faras we know: Mr. Whitworth has invented a gun which 
throws its shot further than any engine of war has ever yet been able to force 
projectiles. Sir W. Armstrong has invented, or adapted, a gun which throws 
shells and shot with greater precision, and at the same time to a greater 
range, than any other cannon in the world. We believe, at least, there is no 
tube, whether it be that of the French rifled gun, or the United States cannon, 
which combines long range and extraordinary accuracy in the discharge of 
shell and shot, to such an extent. It will be observed, then, that Mr. Whit- 
worth excels in range and shot, and Sir William Armstrong is unrivalled in 
the propulsion of shot and shell, —the latter being the more terrible weapon 
of the two. Mr. Whitworth, however, is content to do one thing at a time. 
With a three-pounder of thirty-five degrees elevation, and eight ounces of 
powder, he throws a bolt, which defies gravity and resistance, for five and 
a half miles, and falls deep into the earth at the end of its flight. That is a 
great result; and it is evident, if the number of those small pieces were very 
great, and the object sought to be hit were a stationary mass, they would 
produce destructive effects. But, as against stone-works, or even earth- 
works, these small bolts would make little more impression than arrows fired 
into an archery butt. It is the heavy concussion of Jarge shot fired at low 
elevations, and with comparatively small charges of powder, which generally 
produces the most destructive effects on masonry; whilst on riveted earthen 
ramparts and gabionades no missile is so efficacious as shells bursting continu- 
ously in the face of the rivetments. If Mr. Whitworth appeals to his great 
range alone, we must meet him frankly, and, with the fullest recognition of 
his great merits and of his very extraordinary achievements, we tell him 
that, in our opinion, great range of light shot at high elevation is not so 
formidable by any means as sure practice of heavier shot and shell at much 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 49 


shorter distance. With considerable diffidence, also, we beg to point out to 
Mr. Whitworth two difficulties against which he must bring his mechanical 
genius and his indefatigable resolution to bear: One is, the large allowance 
to be made by the gunners for the influence of strong side-winds on his bolts; 
the other, —and a serious one,—the great deflection which occurs in the 
ricochet after the first graze. Artillerymen will understand how very impor- 
tant it is that richochet should be as much as possible in the true line of fire. 
It is our conviction that the importance of very long range from guns at high 
elevation has been very much exaggerated, if the range be obtained by long 
bolts, and not by shell. Reason about it as mechanics, philosophers, or 
metaphysicians may, there is some strange repugnance, if not inability, in 
man to direct implements of destruction against unseen foes.- But it is said 
we must fit our new guns with telescopes. The experiment would be still 
unsuccessful. If any one doubts it, let him walk to some hill five miles away 
from a great city, with a good glass in his hand, and select some point for 
attack: Then let him examine his own sensations, and ascertain whether he 
would have much confidence in his three-pounder bolt, and would work his 
imaginary guns with energy against the mark, and he may rest assured that 
he has at that moment a pretty certain index to the state of his feelings in 
actual warfare. Until Mr. Whitworth has proved the adaptability of his 
guns for firing shell, and the power of his larger ordnance to obtain consid- 
erable range at low elevations, he may consider that his beautiful principle 
has not received its. full practical development for purposes of warfare; 
whilst Sir William Armstrong must admit that, as yet, his worthy and liberal 
rival has beaten him in the matter of range, which is one that must always 
have most important relations to the power of artillery. Mr. Whitworth has 
proved that his heavy gun throws a shot which maintains its initial velocity 
for a great length of time, and we doubt not he will yet get great propor- 
tionate range from his eighty-pounder. His lineal accuracy is very great at 
the lower trajectories of the ight guns, and it will, of course, be exceeded by 
the heavy ordnance. 


NEW WAR IMPLEMENTS. 


Hotchkiss’s New Projectile. — A new form of projectile for rifled cannon has 
been brought out during the past year by Messrs. Hotchkiss, of Connecticut, 
and has received favorable attention from the United States War Department. 
It is made in three parts: the main body of cast iron, with a space or 
cavity around its centre, into which a belt or jacket of lead, or other soft 
metal, is cast. On the rear end they place a cap of cast iron, with the front 
edwe sharp like a wedge, which is driven on to the rear end of the shot, and 
into the belt or jacket of lead. In this condition the shot is introduced into 
any rifled cannon of suitable bore, and the action of the powder, when the 
explosion occurs, forces the wedging cap further into and underneath the 
Icad belt, and expands it into the grooves of the gun. This expansion is not 
allowed to take place except to an extent barely sufficient to tightly fill the 
grooves of the gun — the extent being perfectly controlled by the depth of the 
cap, the interior of which drives against the end of the cast-iron body of 
the shot, and this limits the strain on the gun. 

The advantages claimed for the shot, are: extraordinary accuracy; long 
ranges, with low elevation; light charges of powder, in proportion to the 
weight of projectile; and immense power of penetration. 

; 5 


50 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Monster Gun. — One of the largest cannon ever constructed has been cast 
during the past year at the Fort Pitt Foundry, Pittsburg, under the super- 
intendence of Lieut. Rodman, of the Ordnance Department. It was cast 
hollow, upon a core, through which a stream of cold water was constantly 
passing, at the rate of about forty gallons per minute: the object being to 
produce metal of uniform texture, from the equa! cooling and contraction of 
the mass. The core-barrel, which formed the bore of the gun, was removed 
twenty-four hours after casting, and water, at the same rate as before, was 

caused to circulate through the cavity, descending along a tube to the bottom 
of the bore, rising up by another tube, and escaping through a wrought-iron 
pipe, cast into the spruechead of the gun about fifteen inches from the casting. 
The metal was entirely cold at the end of seven days after casting,—a 
shorter time than is required for cooling an eight-inch solid-cast gun. The 
bore of this gun is fifteen inches in diameter, and thirteen feet long in the cyl- 
inder, which is terminated by an ellipsoidal chamber nine inches long, making 
the total length of bore one hundred and sixty-five inches, or thirteen feet 
nine inches long. The thickness of metal in the breech is twenty-five inches, 
and the total exterior length is fifteen feet ten inches. The greatest exterior 
diameter at the muzzle is 48.1 inches. The weight of the gun is 49,099 
pounds. It is to carry a shell of three hundred and fifty pounds, and a solid 
shot of four hundred and twenty-five pounds weight. 

In illustration of the advantage of the mode of casting adopted in this gun, 
a specimen of cast iron, cut from a shaft cast in the usual way, was recently 
exhibited at a meeting of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. In the middle 
of the piece, where the iron had retained its heat and softness for the longest 
time, the contraction of the surrounding parts had caused the metal to assume 
an open, loose character, whilst the central portion was thrown into groups 
of spiny formation, resembling frost-work. Experiments made with Rod- 
man’s gun at Old Point Comfort, Va., are reported as highly satisfactory. 


THE CONSTRUCTION OF ARTILLERY. 


The very interesting question of the best method of construction to be 
adopted for artillery has recently been handled with unusual detail by a 
body of gentlemen who, it may fairly be presumed, possess peculiar qualifi- 
cations for forming an authoritative opinion on the point. On the fourteenth 
of last February, Mr. Longridge, a civil engineer of considerable eminence, read 
before the London Institution of Civil Engineers a paper on the subject; and 
so great was the interest excited by his essay, that the discussion which fol- 
lowed it was carried on for five consecutive evenings, being sustained by a 
large number of the most distinguished authorities on the question, military 
as well as civil. Although there was, as might have been expected, consid- 
erable difference of opinion, often on points of no small importance, among 
the gentlemen who took part in this lengthened debate, still, the complete 
ventilation of this momentous question at the hands of such competent 
authorities cannot but excite great interest. From a printed report of this 
discussion we derive the following abstract: The one point to which Mr. 
Longridge has directed his efforts is the construction of a gun which shall 
be able perfectly to resist the utmost force of the explosive compound which 
may be used in it; in other words, the manufacture of a gun which gun- 
powder cannot burst. In order to effect this, it becomes, in the first place, 
necessary to ascertain, approximately, at least, the actual amount of the 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 5k 


force generated by the explosion of gunpowder, — a point on which artillerists 
are as yet very far from being completely agreed. Robins, who first at- 
tempted its determination, valued it at one thousand atmospheres, or nearly 
seven tons on the square inch; Hutton, who endeavored to ascertain it by 
means of the ballistic pendulum, estimated it at from thirteen to seventeen 
tons; and Captain Boxer, whose method consists in measuring the actual 
bulk of permanent gas evolved by the combustion of a known amount of 
gunpowder, arrives at the result of rather more than twenty-two tons. Inde- 
pendently of the great discrepancy between these several estimates, Mr. 
Longridge declines to receive them, on the ground of the inaccuracy of the 
methods by which they have been made. In the last method, especially, 
there appears to be several sources of error; for not only has the heat gener- 
ated by the combustion of gunpowder never been experimentally determined, 
but, it is also quite possible that the expansion of gases at so extreme a 
temperature may not altogether be regulated by the law of Mariotte. 
Further, it presupposes the instantaneous conversion of the whole of the | 
powder into gas. Mr. Longridge accordingly instituted a scries of experi- 
ments of his own, based upon the determination of the amount of gunpowder 
required to burst a cylinder of known strength, from which he concluded 
that the ultimate force of the powder used— government powder— did not 
exceed seventeen tons per square inch. This amount of force can never, he 
says, be permanently resisted by a gun made of cast iron, a material whose 
tensile strength is estimated at not more than eight tons per square inch, 
especially if, as is generally the case in England, the gun be cast solid, and 
subsequently bored, since the unequal rate of cooling of the inner and outer 
parts cannot fail to produce serious flaws in its mass. All the money, there- 
fore, which is now being spent in rifling cast-iron ordnance is simply thrown 
away. The same objection applies to the construction of a gun by a single 
casting from any homogeneous material whatever. The only way of attain- 
ing the maximum of strength is, to build up the gun, layer by layer, in such 
a manner that each successive layer, from within outward, shall be in a 
progressively increasing state of tension. It is on this principle that the 
guns of Sir W. Armstrong, Mr. Whitworth, and Captain Blakely are made. 
The method of carrying it out, however, adopted by all these gentlemen, 
consists in encircling a central tube, of various material, with successive 
rings of iron, which are either shrunk on by cooling, or forced on when cold 
by hydraulic pressure. This mode of operation can never, says Mr. Long- 
ridge, lead to perfectly satisfactory results. The extreme nicety with which 
the tension of each successive layer ought to be regulated — the deviation of 
one five-hundredth of an inch from the required size being sufficient to 
materially impair the strength of the gun—can never be arrived at by the 
contraction of a heated ring; and the rings, however put on, must sooner or 
later be loosened by the repeated shocks of the explosion. The plan proposed 
by Mr. Longridge is, to wind round a central tube successive spiral layers of 
steel wire, until the desired strength is attained, — the greatest attention being 
paid to the exact tension of each successive layer. He does not enter at all 
into the question of what is the best material for the central tube. On the 
contrary, his sole object being to exhibit in the most striking light 
the immense power of resistance given by the layers of wire, he appears 
purposely to have made the core as weak as he well could. The resulis of a 
series of private experiments on a small scale were so encouraging that he 
constructed a brass cylinder, of about three inches bore and a yard long, 


52 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


wound round with coils of square steel wire, of the size of one-sixteenth of an 
inch, the coils being six deep at the breech, and diminishing to two at 
the muzzle; and, after subjecting it to a severe proof, submitted it, in June, 
1855, to the Select Ordnance Committee. The decision not being favorable, Mr. 
Longridge continued his experiments, employing a cylinder of cast iron instead 
of brass, and succeeded in producing a gun, weighing only three hundred 
pounds, which could throw a shot of seven and a half pounds to the distance 
of a mile, —a result which, he believes, is not attainable by any six-pounder 
in the service. He further extended his invention to the construction of 
cylinders for hydraulic presses, and succeeded in combining the two very 
desirable qualifications of lightness and strength to a degree far beyond 
anything that has been attained by any other mode of construction. 

Such, briefly, are the principal points which were submitted by Mr. Long- 
ridge to the meeting. We have already said that in the discussion which 
followed many of the most distinguished authorities, civil and military, took 
part. It seems to be generally admitted that, as far as regards mere strength, 
Mr. Longridge’s guns are likely to be superior to any others. Most of the 
objections which are made to his plan are based upon the difficulty of securing 
the wire firmly at the breech and the muzzle; points which, says Mr. 
Longridge in reply, present no real difficulty at all. 

Several gentlemen speak up in favor of cast iron as a material for artillery. 
Mr. Haddan and Mr. Bashley Britten, to whom the task of rifling the exist- 
ing iron ordnance has been chiefly entrusted, both declare that, for ranges 
of from three to four thousand yards, the old guns are all that can be de- 
sired. They urge, with considerable cogency, that a longer range than this 
is not practically required. In order to make sure of hitting even a large 
object at six thousand yards or upwards, it is necessary to throw away in 
ascertaining the range more shot than can, with a due regard to economy, 
be spared. Cheapness must be an important element in the calculation. 
An old iron gun, whose value is not more than £20, can be rifled for thirty 
shillings, and so enabled to throw shot to a distance of more than three 
thousand yards; and it is bad economy to spend £250 on an Armstrong 
twelve-pounder, whose performance is but little if at all superior. Mr. 
Conybeare and other gentlemen extol the American system of casting iron 
guns hollow, and cooling them from within outwards, by passing through 
them a continual stream of cold water, while the outside is kept heated. 
This method secures the advantage of keeping the outer portion of the gun 
in a greater state of tension than the inner; and Mr. Conybeare anticipates 
that the gun of the future will be of cast iron, and manufactured in this 
manner. But the truth appears to be, that cast iron, though not so utterly 
untrustworthy as is asserted by Mr. Longridge, cannot be relied upon asa 
material for artillery. One gun may survive thousands of discharges, and 
another, made of the same iron, and under the same circumstances, may 
burst at the first discharge. Sir C. Fox advocates the use of iron alloyed 
with wolfram or titanium; and Mr. Abel, the chemist to the Ordnance 
Department, states that a compound far superior in tenacity to ordinary 
gun-metal may be obtained by mixing copper with from two to four per 
cent. of phosphorus. But there is little doubt that, as far as is vet known, 
the only reliable guns are those which are built upon one modification or 
another of the new principle. Mr. Lancaster says a few words respecting 
the bursting of his guns in the Crimea, a misfortune which has since then 
been frequently cited as a proof of the incfticiency of his system. The acci- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 53 


dent was entirely owing to the faulty construction of the shells which were 
at first used. They were made in two parts, and welded together, and the 
weld being occasionally imperfect, the flame of the explosion penetrated 
into the shell, which burst in, and of course shattered the gun. Shells made 
in one piece were at once substituted, and nothing of the sort has since 
occurred. : 

In regard to the effect of twist in rifled guns, every artillerist seems to 
have his own ideas as to the degree of it to be given, varying from Mr. Had- 
dan’s one turn in forty feet to Mr. Whitworth’s one turn in forty inches; 
but not one of them takes the trouble to give his reasons for selecting the 
precise pitch which he has decided to adopt. Mr. Haddan, indeed, believes 
that a very rapid twist is likely to burst the gun; and Mr. Whitworth says 
vaguely that it is very desirable to give a very rapid rotation to the projec- 
tile; but neither one nor the other cites either facts or theories in support of 
his view. Mr. W. B. Adams regards rifling merely as a device for correct- 
ing the defects of badly constructed projectiles; and as it involves a consid- 
erable waste of propelling power, he hopes before long to see it dispensed 
with altogether, by the employment of more accurately-made shot. 

Perhaps the most obvious and striking conclusion that is deducible from 
the whole of this discussion is, that the science of artillery is as yet in its 
infancy. There is not a single point of importance on which the most 
Opposite opinions are not held by the most competent authorities. To spec- 
ulate on the causes which have led to this extraordinary neglect on matters 
of such vital import would be a task more easy than profitable. 


SCIENCE IN THE BATTLE-FIELD. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture recently delivered before the 
Royal Institution, London, by Mr. F. Abel, Director of the chemical establish- 
ment of the War Department of Great Taitaeae ‘On the recent SppiEsniows 
of Science in Reference to the Efficiency and Welfare of Military Forces.’ 

One of the most important subjects in connection with military equipment, 
and one which hag recently received a very large share of general attention, 
relates to the changes which have gradually been effected in the nature of 
material, and the principles of construction, applied to the production of 
cannon Until very recently, the materials used for cannon have been only 
of two kinds — east iron and bronze, or, rather, the alloy of copper and tin, 
known as gun-metal. Of these, the latter is by far the most ancient. Guns 
were cast of bronze in France and Germany about 1370, and from that period 
until the close of the fifteenth century this material gradually replaced 
wrought iron, of which guns were constructed in the first instance. An 
examination of such iron guns of early date as are still in existence — such 
as the Mons Meg, of Scotland, the great gun of Ghent, and others —shows 
that the principles involved in their general construction are precisely those 
which have just been most successfully applied to the production of wrought 
iron rifled guns in this country. Those ancient guns were built up of stave- 
bars, arranged longitudinally, upon which wrought-iron rings were shrunk. 
The very imperfect nature of those structures, arising from the primitive 
condition of mechanical and metallurgic appliances at that early period, 
rendered their durability exceedingly uncertain; and it is therefore not 
surprising to find that compound guns of this class were gradually replaced 
by cannon cast in one piece. Even the great expense of bronze, as com- 


5* 


54 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pared with iron, was counterbalanced by the vast amount of time and labor 
which must have been bestowed on the construction of the old wrought-iron 
guns. 

Although cast iron was applied to the production of shot and other pro- 
jectiles at the close of the fourteenth century, it was not until about 1660 
that cannon were made of this material. In proportion as the facility of its 
production increased, its application in this direction was gradually ex- 
tended; but in no country has it ever entirely superseded bronze or gun- 
metal, which, on account of its superior tenacity, has always been employed 
for the construction of light field-guns. This alloy possesses, however, some 
very serious defects, arising principally out of its softness, and its consequent 
incapacity to resist the injurious effects of rapid firing. Numerous experi- 
ments have been made with alloys of copper, and, recently, with other com- 
binations of that metal, with the object of discovering some material at least 
equal to gun-metal in tenacity, and superior to it in hardness and also in 
uniformity. Alloys of copper and aluminum have been proposed; but, 
apart from the present great cost of aluminum, the readiness with which 
this metal is attacked by alkaline substances, and the powerful corrosive 
action which portions of the products of decomposition of powder conse- 
quently exert upon it, preclude its application to the production of a substi- 
tute for gun-metal. The effect of silicon in hardening and greatly increasing 
the tenacity of copper has also received attention; and there appears little 
doubt that, the difficulty of producing on a large scale a uniform compound 
of copper and silicon once overcome, such a material would prove a most 
valuable substitute for bronze. The effects of asmall quantity of phosphorus 
upon copper are similar to those of silicon; the metal is greatly hardened, 
its uniformity may be ensured, and its tenacity is also much increased. 
Copper containing from two to four per cent. of phosphorus will resist a 
strain of from forty-eight to fifty thousand pounds on the square inch, while 
the average strain borne by gun-metal is about thirty-five thousand pounds. 
Uniform compounds of phosphorus and copper can, moreover, be prepared 
without difficuity upon a large scale. By immersing pieces of phosphorus 
for a short time in a solution of sulphate of copper, they become coated with 
a film of the metal, so that they may be safely handled, and thrust beneath 
the surface of liquid copper before the coating melts; thus the phosphorus 
is readily combined with the copper without loss. 

The great success which has recently attended the construction of mallea- 
ble iron guns appears, however, to render it doubtful whether any of the 
compounds above referred to, or others of a similar character, will ever 
receive employment as materials for cannon. Attempts have been made 
from time to time, for many years past, to produce forgings of malleable 
iron of sufficient size for conversion into cannon. The great difficulty of 
insuring anything approaching uniformity of chemical composition and 
physical properties in cast iron, and the consequent great variation and 
uncertainty of the enduring power of guns made of that material, acted as 
powerful incentives for the prosecution of such experiments. Experience 
gained during the late war was also unfavorable, partly to the employment 
of cast iron as the material for the heaviest pieces of ordnance, and partly 
to the system of casting those hitherto in use. 

The attempts made by Nasmyth and others to produce large forgings, 
sufficiently perfect for conversion into cannon, were, however, uniformly 
attended with failure, excepting in the instance of a very large gun — thir- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 55 


teen-inch calibre — constructed at the Mersey Company’s works, which has 
successfully withstood some severe trials, though even this gun is not a per- 
fectly sound forging throughout. This want of success is ascribed partly to 
the difficulty of ensuring perfect welds throughout a very large forging, 
and partly to a change which is gradually effected in the physical structure 
of the metal by its repeated exposure to a high temperature, and possibly, 
also, in some measure, by its frequent subjection to powerful concussion. 
In large masses of wrought iron, which have been built up by welding, the 
fibrous structure of the metal is always found to have passed over, more or 
Tess perfectly, into a lamellar structure, and the strength of the mass thus 
becomes very considerably diminished. 

While unsuccessful attempts to construct cannon of Pe masses of mal- 
leable iron were still in progress, Mr. Mallet, Captain Biakeley, and others, 
who had given the subject of the construction of cannon of large size their 
serious attention, and had applied mathematical reasoning to its elucidation, 
had arrived at the conclusion that the true system to be followed was that 
of constructing cannon of several parts, combined in such a manner as to 
render every portion of the metal available in resisting, by its tenacity and 
elasticity, the strain exerted upon the gun by the explosion of powder. The 
mcthod of construction proposed by those gentlemen consisted in preparing, 
in the first instance, cylinders (or rings, to be afterwards braced together), 
and in shrinking upon these other rings, of which the internal diameter was 
somewhat less than the external diameter of the first rings or the cylinder. 
The latter are thus placed in a state of compression, while the external rings 
are in a stateof tension. Other rings are again shrunk upon the outer ones, 
according to the size of the gun and the strain which it has to bear. In this 
way the whole of the metal composing a heavy gun or mortar is arranged 
in a condition most favorable to the effectual resistance of a sudden strain 
applied from the interior. A gun constructed on this plan, by Captain 
Blakeley, has exhibited very great enduring powers. Two enormous mor- 
tars have also been constructed by Mr. Mallet on the same principle; and, 
although the trials with one of these were only partially successful, the cor- 
rectness of the principles above referred to were in no way impugned by the 
results obtained. 

The methods adopted for the production of the beautiful rifle-gun invented 
by Sir William Armstrong, which is rapidly replacing the old bronze field- 
guns, afford an interesting illustration of the application of the above sys- 
tem to the construction of very light and durable cannon. This gun consists 
essentially of rings partly welded together, so as to produce a cylinder or 
barrel of sufficient length, and partly shrunk one upon another, so as to im- 
part the requisite strength to the structure. The rings themselves are from 
two to three feet in length, and are formed out of long bars, which are coiled 
up, when at a red-heat, into spiral tubes, and afterwards welded into solid 
rings or tubes by a few blows from the steam-hammer, applied to one end of 
the heated coil, while in a vertical position. The rings are united, to form 
the barrel of the gun, by raising to a welding-heat the closely proximate 
extremities of two rings, placed end to end, and then, applying a powerful 
pressure to the cold ends of the rings. In the large guns, a second layer of 
rings is shrunk on to the first set, or barrel, throughout the length; but in 
the smaller guns it is only behind the trunnions that two additional rings are 
shrunk on, one over the other. The outer ring is exactly like those already 
described ; but the intermediate one is prepared by bending two iron slabs into a 


56 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


semi-cylindrical form, and then welding them together at the edges. In this 
way a cylinder is obtained in which the fibre of the iron is arranged longi- 
tudinally, instead of transversely as in the other rings. This arrangement is 
adopted because that part of the gun has to sustain the principal force of the 
thrust upon the breech, on the discharge. It is into this portion that the 
breech-screw — made of steel—fits, by means of which a movable plug of 
steel, provided with a soft copper washer, is pressed up against the end of 
the barrel when the gun has been loaded. The breech-screw being hollow, 
the charge is introduced through it into the gun, on the removal of the plug. 

This gun, built up of so many pieces, accurately welded, and turned, and fit- 
ted, with its thirty or forty grooves, its neat lever arrangement for working 
the breech-screw, its admirable sights for giving direction, and various other 
arrangements, contrived so as to render it a most complete and perfect 
weapon, is undoubtedly very costly as compared with the ordinary cast-iron 
gun. But, owing to the admirable system of manufacture, and the beautiful 
mechanical appliances brought to bear upon the production of each part, the 
original cost of the gun has already been very much diminished. On com- 
paring the price of a twelve-pounder gun with that of a bronze gun of the 
same calibre, which it has now superseded, the latter is found to be about 
double the expense. The price of iron used for the manufacture of the 
Armstrong gun is nineteen pounds per ton. It is the best description of 
malleable iron, bearing a tensile strain of about seventy-four thousand pounds 
on the square inch. The present cost of a twelve-pounder gun, weighing 
eight hundred weight, is about ninety-three pounds. The value of gun-metal 
is about one hundred and twenty-five pounds per ton; and the cost of a 
twelye-pounder gun of this material, weighing nineteen hundred weight, is 
one hundred and seventy-five pounds ten shillings. Of the latter, it may be 
said, that when no longer serviceable it may be recast, while an old Armstrong 
gun cannot be reconverted into a new one. But, on the other hand, the 
average number of rounds which can be fired from the old gun before it is 
unserviceable scarcely exceeds one thousand; while the limit to the power 
of endurance of the Armstrong gun is not yet known. Between five and six 
thousand rounds have been fired from one, without any vital injury to the 
gun. 

While these important results have been obtained with guns of wrought 
iron, built of rings, others, scarcely less valuable, have attended the applica- 
tion of materials, varying in their nature between steel and malleable iron, to 
the production of light guns, cast in one piece. M. Krupp, of Essen, was 
the first to produce masses of cast steel of sufficient size for conversion into 
cannon. <A twelve-pounder gun, cast of this material, was experimented 
upon in this country several years ago, and exhibited the most extraordinary 
powers of endurance, having withstood the heaviest proofs without bursting. 
Similarly good results were obtained with cast steel in France and Germany, 
and it is now applied to the construction of the rifled field-guns in Prussia. 
A cast material, somewhat similar in character to this steel of M. Krupp, 
and to which the name of homogeneous iron has been given, has recently 
received most successful application in the hands of Mr. Whitworth, not 
only to the production of the barrels for his rifle small arms, but also to 
the manufacture of his beautiful rifle-cannon. The smaller cannon are cast 
in one piece, and then forged to the required form. The heavy guns— 
eighty and hundred pounders — consist, however, of cylinders of homoge- 
neous iron, upon which hoops of fibrous iron are forced by hydraulic pres- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 57 


sure, the breech portion receiving hoops cf puddled stecl. The smali Whit- 
worth guns undoubtedly possess the great advantage of simplicity of con- 
_struction over the compound guns just described; but the present great ex- 
pense of the material gives the latter the advantage in point of cost. There 
can be little doubt, however, that the facilities for obtaining products of this 
description will increase with the demand; and there appears no reason why 
the process of Mr. Bessemer, which has recently been applied with great 
success to the conversion of iron of good chemical quality into excellent 
cast steel, upon a very considerable scale, should not be resorted to for the 
production, at a moderate cost, of masses of cast steel, or a material of a 
similar character, of sufficient size for conversion into cannon of all sizes 
but those of the heaviest calibre, which it will, perhaps, always be found 
most advantageous to construct of several pieces, upon the principles just 
now referred to. 

The improvements effected in the construction of fire-arms have rendered 
indispensable a careful revision of the descriptions of gunpowder hitherto- 
used, which has already led to the modification of several important points 
in the manufacture of powder, whereby a greater uniformity in the action of 
the latter is ensured, and its explosion is regulated with especial regard to 
the double work which it now has to perform in the greater number of rifled 
arms, namely, that of propelling the projectile, and of expanding it into the 
grooves of the rifle. 

Considerable attention has been devoted in different continental states, 
during the last few years, to the application of the different forms of elec- 
tricity to the discharge of mines. The many serious inconveniences attend- 
ing the employment of voltaic batteries for that purpose in the ficid, have 
led to the use, with considerable success, of the arrangements contrived by 
Ruhmkorff and others for the production of powerful electro-magnetic cur- 
rents. The application of the induction-coil machine, with appropriate fuse 
arrangements, for the ignition of the mine by means of the spark, led to a 
very great reduction in the size of the battery required even for extensive 
operations. The necessity, however, of still using a battery, and the great 
liability to injury of the induction apparatus, have rendered the advantage to 
be attained by their employment somewhat questionable. In Austria very 
important results are said to have been obtained by the employment of fric- 
tional in the place of voltaic electricity. A very portable arrangement of a 
plate-electric machine, with Leyden jars, and a small stove to protect the 
apparatus from damp, has been employed with success in some extensive 
operations, as many as one hundred charges having been fired simultaneously 
by its means. Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Abel have carried on numer- 
ous experiments on the application of electricity in this direction; and, at the 
suggestion of the former, attempts were made to employ the electricity ob- 
tained by induction from permanent magnets. No difficulty was experienced 
in igniting a single charge by its agency; but it was found that the ignition 
of more than one charge could not be effected with certainty by the employ- 
ment even of the most powerful magnets and the use of fuses containing 
very sensitive compositions. Eventually, a fuse arrangement was contrived 
and a composition prepared by Mr. Abel, with the employment of which the 
ignition of several mines could be effected with certainty, by means of one 
of the small magnetic arrangements employed by Mr. Wheatstone in his 
portable telegraphs; and an ingenious combination of several such magnets, 
arranged in a form very portable and readily worked by any soldier, can be 


58 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


applied with equal certainty to the discharge of a considerable number of 
mines. The great element of success in the fuse-composition employed is to 

be found in the circumstance that it combines a high degree of sensitiveness 

with considerable conducting power. The substitution of the magnet for 
the voltaic and other arrangements hitherto used will greatly facilitate min- 

ing operations; the soldier requires but little instruction in its use; with ordi- 

nary care it is not liable to derangement; it is very transportable, and ready 

for application at the shortest notice. 

In connection with submarine operations, vulenriesd India-rubber bags 
have become valuable substitutes for the wooden and metal receptacles hith- 
erto employed for the charges of powder. The numerous applications which 
India-rubber, especially in its vulcanized form, now receives in connection 
with military equipments, render it a most indispensable material. Thus it 
has been applied to the preparation of waterproof linings for powder-barrels, 
waterproof cases for cartridges, convenient holders and waterproof coatings 
for percussion caps. It is used in the form of springs and buffers in connec- 
tion with gun-carriages and the beds of heavy mortars; ambulance wagons 
are supplied with efficient and easily applicable springs of India-rubber; and 
one of the most important additions recently made to the comfort of troops 
has been the general supply to them, when on active service, of waterproof 
clothing and covers, to be used in camp. 

The protection of camp-erections from fire has also received attention, with 
successful results. A cheap and ready mode of applying a coating of insol- 
uble silicate of lime and soda to the surface of camp huts, whereby very 
important protection against fire is attained, received application a few years 
ago; and quite recently a method has been devised, by Mr. Abel, of impreg- 
nating tent-cloth with silicates to such an extent as effectually to prevent fire 
from spreading, when applied to any portion of it, and in such a form as to 
enable them to resist the solvent effects of drenching rains. 

The application of soluble silicates to the preparation of very porous arti- 
ficial stone has enabled Mr. Ransome to produce portable filters, by the aid 
of which the soldier may frequently be enabled to partake of water which 
otherwise would be unfit for use. A still more efficient portable filter is now, 
however, prepared of carbon, in a porous condition, which not only has the 
property of retaining the mechanical impurities of water in its passage 
through it, but also will purify it to a very considerable extent from injurious 
organic matters and gases which it may contain. 

One of the most important improvements which has yet been effected in 
the purification of water, and one which has already received important ap- 
plication in connection with the military service, is presented in the appara- 
tus contrived by Dr. Normandy for the preparation of wholesome and pleas- 
ant water from sea or other water unfit for consumption. The apparatus 
consists, in the first instance, of a great improvement on the condensing 
arrangement contrived by Sir T. Grant, which has been for some time used 
in the navy. The heat abstracted fom the steam first consumed is applied 
to the distillation of a second similar quantity of water, and the arrange- 
ment employed for condensing this second product is of such a nature as to 
ensure a very gradual but continuous replacement of the condensing water. 
In this manner the latter becomes sufficiently heated, before it passes out of 
the apparatus, to part with the gases which it contains in solution, and which 
are made to pass into the distilling apparatus and mix with the steam. The 
condensed product is thus thoroughly atrated; it is then, finally, made to 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 59 


pass through a charcoal filter, which completely deprives it of the disagree- 
able empyreumatic flavor always possessed by distilled water. Indepen- 
-dently of the applications which this apparatus is receiving to the supply of 
ships with water, it has proved very valuable in readily and continuously 
producing large quantities of wholesome water for the supply of troops at 
stations where the only water procurable was unfit for consumption. 

The important subject of the economical supply of well-cooked and pala- 
table food to troops in barracks and on active service, which had been consid- 
erably neglected previous to the late war, has received great attention on the 
part of Captain Grant; and the results of his labors in this direction have 
been the production of most efficient cooking-ranges for barracks, and equip- 
ments for cooking in the field. By the employment of the range, with oven 
attached, which has been contrived by him, and is used at Aldershott, Wool- 
wich, and other military stations, the cost of cooking for a large number of 
troops — eight hundred to one thousand being supplied with food from one 
range — has been reduced to a halfpenny per man per week; and, by 
further improvements which Captain Grant is just carrying out, it will still 
be subject to considerable reduction. The food is, at the same time, cooked 
in various ways, by means of the oven and other appliances. An arrange- 
ment has been devised by Captain Grant, and used by troops with great suc- 
cess, for cooking in the field in long cylindrical boilers, which are so disposed 
over trenches dug for the purpose that, with a very small consumption of 
fuel, well-cooked food may be supplied from eight of them, in between two 
and three hours, sufficient for eight hundred men. These kettles are of such 
a form that they may also be made to serve the purpose of pontoons in the 
construction of bridges. 

The subjects briefly discussed in this discourse can only be regarded as 
examples of the many directions in which every branch of science has 
recently received application in connection with the military service. 


PROPERTIES OF GUNPOWDER. 


Mr. Fairbairn, F. R. S., has communicated to the Philosophical Society of 
Manchester the following results of “An Experimental Inquiry into the 
Effect of severe Pressure upon the Properties of Gunpowder.” During the 
late war, the author received from the government authorities different sam- 
ples of gunpowder, for the purpose of submitting them to severe compres- 
sion, in order to ascertain the effect of close contact between the particles 
upon its explosive properties. At the government works there is no ma- 
chinery of sufficient strength to give a pressure of more than five thousand 
to six thousand pounds per square inch; and as it was considered advisable 
to test the quality of the powder under the influence of greatly increased 
pressure, the author was requested to compress it in an apparatus of his 
own, calculated to effect its condensation under a force of more than sixty 
thousand pounds per square inch. By carrying the pressure in this way far 
beyond the ordinary limits, it was expected that the precise influence of 
compression on the properties of the powder would be more clearly and 
accurately exhibited. 

The samples of powder were placed in a wrought-iron box, and com- 
pressed by a lever, acting upon them by a solid piston, with a force varying 
from thirty-eight thousand to sixty-seven thousand pounds per square inch 
in the different specimens. When taken from the apparatus, the powder 


60 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


was found to have been consolidated into cylinders of one and a quarter 
inches in diameter, with smooth, polished surfaces, every trace of its granu- 
lar character having disappeared. 

From the Report of Mr. Abel, the chemist of the War Department, we 
learn that the specific gravity of the specimens was increased by the pres- 
sure, but not to so great an extent as might have been expected. 

The specimens, having been granulated, were then burned, and it was 
found, on comparing the results with those of similar experiments on ordi- 
nary press-cake, that the amount of residue left by the compressed powders, 
after ignition, was greater in proportion as the pressure was increased. 
This increase of residue is probably to be attributed to the more gradual 
combustion and the diminished intensity of heat generated by compressed 
powder. 

Experiments were then instituted to determine the amount of charcoal 
left unconsumed in the residue. They showed conclusively that the con- 
densation of the powder had caused a more perfect chemical action in com- 
bustion, as the per-centage of carbon was considerably diminished in the 
compressed powders. Nitric acid was very carefully searched for in the 
residues of the compressed powders, but none could be detected, although 
in ordinary gunpowder a portion of the acid of the saltpetre always escapes 
decomposition. 

An important objection to the application of increased pressure in the 
manufacture of gunpowder, notwithstanding the more intimate mechanical 
mixture of its constituents, is, that the quantity of the-residue left after com- 
bustion is increased, and a larger proportion of powder escapes ignition 
‘altogether when a charge is fired from a gun. If, however, larger quantities 
were submitted to compression, it is probable that the closer contact of the 
particles might be found to act beneficially, and a powder be produced of 
an improved and stronger quality, resulting from a judicious application of 
increased pressure and a more perfect system of granulation. — Mechanics’ 
(London) Magazine. 

Mr. Lynall Thomas, in a communication to the Royal Socicty, says: 
Since the year 1797, when Count Rumford made his experiments for ascer- 
taining the initial force of fired gunpowder, an account of which appears in 
the Philosophical Transactions of that year, very little light has been thrown 
on the subject. Count Rumford’s experiments, valuable in many respects, 
afforded, indeed, nothing conclusive respecting it. The object of the present 
paper is to show the unsatisfactory nature of the present theory of the action 
of gunpowder, and to point out some of the principal errors upon which this 
theory is based. For this purpose, the results of various experiments made 
by the author, and which were repeated in the presence of a-select com- 
mittee at Woolwich, are described and explained. These experiments are 
held by the author not only to afford complete evidence of the unsoundness 
of the present theory, but as sufficiently conclusive to serve as the basis for 
the formation of a new set of formulz, both correct and simple, in place of 
those at present in use. The initial action of the fired charge of powder 
upon the shot, the first movement of the shot itself in the gun, and the 
force exerted upon the gun by different charges of powder, and, therefore, 
the actual strength of metal required by the gun, are circumstances which, 
as the author believes, have not only been misunderstood, but for which 
laws have been assigned directly opposed to the truth. As an instance of 
this, the hitherto received theory supposes that when a shot is forced from a 


MECHANICS AND USi#FUL ARTS. Gl 


gun it aequires its velocity gradually, from the pressure of the elastic fluid 
generated by the fired powder acting upon it through a certain space. It is 
also supposed that the initial pressure of the elastic fluid is the same in all 
cases,—the quantities of powder being proportional, — whether the gun 
from which the shot is fired be large or small; so that the larger the calibre 
of the gun, the slower the first movement of the shot is supposed to be. 

The result of the following experiment is given to prove that the first of 
these propositions is incorrect. The author placed a cast-iron shot, three 
inches in diameter, and three pounds fourteen ounces in weight, upon a 
chamber half an inch in diameter and half an inch deep. This chamber 
wes formed in a bleck of gun-metal, and contained, when filled, one dram 
of powder. Upon lighting the powder, the ball was driven to a height of 
five feet six inches. When the ball was placed one-cighth of an inch over 
the chamber, the charge failed to move it. From this it is inferred that the 
first force of the powder is an impulsive force, that is to say, it imparts to 
the shot at once a finite velocity. In order to place the matter beyond a 
doubt, and to ascertain the relative force of different quantities of powder, 
the author caused a chamber to be made similar in form to, but of twice 
the linear dimensions of the former; he then placed a cast-iron ball, of six 
inches in diameter, upon the orifice of this chamber, which was filled with 
powder; upon firing the latter, the bail was driven up to a height of eleven 
feet; thatis to say, to double the height of the smaller. The state of the 
metal in which the chamber was formed also showed the increase of the 
initial force of the powder. This is considered to be sufficient proof that the 
last two of the above-mentioned propositions are as incorrect as the first. 
Assuming the initial force of the powder to be of an impulsive nature,.it is 
not difiicult to understand the increase of force shown in the last-named 
experiment, inasmuch as a certain time being required for the complete 
conversion of the powder into an elastic fluid, a quantity contained in a 
chamber of a similar form, but of greater linear dimensions than another, 
must ignite in a less comparative time, the linear dimensions increasing in 
the ratio of the first power, and the quantity of powder increasing in the 
ratio of the third power, so that the flame will traverse a larger quantity in 
comparatively less time. Thus it appears that the powder which inflames 
more rapidly has a much greater initial force, being more concentrated in 
its. action; a quick burning powder, therefore, is better for ordnance of 
small length, such as mortars and iron howitzers. The different results pro- 
duced by powder of different quality have, according to the author, been 
entirely overlooked in the hitherto received theory. This theory, which 
considers the secondary force, namely, the clasticity of the fluid only, and 
takes no account whatever of the enormous impulsive or initial force pro- 
duced by the sudden conversion of the powder into an clastic fluid, is that 
which regulates the system upon which ordnance are at present constructed ; 
hence the reason why large guns are so liable to burst — so much so, that it 
has been said that no gun larger than a thirty-two pounder is safe to fire. 

From the variety of experiments made by the author, he arrives at the 
conclusion that when powder is of the same quality, and confined in cham- 
bers of similar form but of different sizes, the initial force varies, within cer- 


adeeb dees : ws ; . 
tain limits, in the ratio of a , Where w is the weight of the powder, and w7/ 


of the ball. Thus, were this new theory recognized, the question of the 
increase of strength, with increased thickness of metal, would wear an 
6 


62 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


entirely new aspect. So far from the metal in large guns diminishing in 
strength in the proportion assumed, it will be a matter for inquiry how it 
resists the great strain to which it is subjected, rather than why it yields; 
for we find, from the experiments described above, that a sixty-eight 
pounder gun, which has a calibre of twice the diameter of a nine-pounder 
gun, must, when fired with the same proportionate charge of powder as the 
latter, continually be subject to as great a strain as the latter would suffer if 
always fired with the proof-charge, which is three times the quantity of the 
ordinary service-charge. — Proc. Royal Soc. 


THE DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE OF STEAM. 


We extract from the London ngineer the following account — read before 
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, by William Fairbairn, 
F. R. S.—of some researches to determine the density of steam at all tem- 
peratures : 

I propose to give ashort sketch of an apparatus and the results of the 
earlier experiments which, in conjunction with my friend Mr. Thomas Tate, 
I have been investigating by direct experiments, with the intention of deter- 
mining the law of the density of steam and other condensable vapors; and 
thus to solve a hitherto almost untouched problem by an experimental 
method, which will verify or correct the theoretical speculations in regard to 
the relation between the specific volume and temperature of steam and other 
vapors. The experiments are being conducted, it is believed, upon an en- 
tirely novel and original principle, and one which is applicable at any tem- 
perature and pressure capable of being sustained by glass vessels. 

For a perfect gas, the law which regulates the relation between temperature 
and volume is known as Gay-Lussac’s or Dalton’s law, and is expressed by 
the equation 

, Vx PP 458+4+4 
) Vix Pl” 458+¢ 


Now, density of steam has been determined with accuracy by direct experi- 
ment at the temperature of two hundred and twelve degrees—and at that 
temperature only — by the method of Dumas. At two hundred and twelve 
degrees Fahrenheit its density is such that its volume is one thousand six 
hundred and seventy times that of the water that produced it. Substituting 
these values of volume, temperature, and pressure, we get for the volume of 
steam from a unit of water at any other temperature, 


, 1670 X15_, 458-4 ¢ 
2, peed X Meg AOS eee 
P Bil gay un ed 

458-4 t 
Or, V= 373 


This is the well-known and received formula from which all the tables of 
the density of steam have hitherto been deduced, and on which calculations 
on the duty of steam-engines have been founded. Up to the present time, 
however, this formula has never been verified by direct experiment, nor are 
the methods hitherto employed in determining the density of gases and 
vapors applicable in this case, except at the boiling temperature of the liquid 
at the ordinary atmospheric pressure. But, on the other hand, theoretical 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 63 


speculations throw considerable doubt on the accuracy of the above formula 
when applied to steam and other condensable vapors. Several years ago, Dr. 
Joule and Professor William Thomson announced, as the result of applying 
the new dynamical theory of heat to the law of Carnot, that, for tempera- 
tures above two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit, there is a very con- 
siderable deviation from the gaseous laws in the case of steam. Later, in 
1855, Professor Maquorn Rankine has given a new theoretical formula for the 
density of steam, independent of Gay-Lussac’s law, and confirmatory of 
Professor Thomson’s surmise. But as yet these speculations need the evi- 
dence and verification of direct experiment. 

The density of steam is ascertained by vaporizing a known weight of water 
in a glass globe of known capacity, and noting the exact temperature at 
which the whole of the water becomes converted into steam. From these 
three elements— volume, weight, and temperature —the specific gravity is 
known. But in pursuing this method, these two difficulties must be over- 
come: First, the pressure of the steam renders it necessary that the glass 
globe should be heated in a strong, and consequently opaque, vessel; second, 
as steam rapidly expands in volume for any increase of temperature, beyond 
the temperature of saturation, if would, in any case, be impossible to decide 
by the eye the temperature at which the whole of the water became vapor- 
ized. The temperature of saturation, or temperature at which the whole of 
the moisture is converted into steam, while no part of the steam is super- 
heated, must be determined with the utmost accuracy, or the results are of 
no value. 

The difficulties thus resolve themselves into finding some other test of suf- 
ficient accuracy and delicacy to determine the point of saturation. This has 
been overcome by what may be termed the saturation gauge; and it is in this 
that the novelty of the present experiments consists. 

To illustrate the principles of the saturation gauge, suppose two globes, A 
and B (Fig. 1), connected by a bent tube containing mercury at a b, and 
placed in a bath in which they can be raised to any desired temperature. 
Suppose a Torricellian vacuum to have been created in each globe, and 
twenty grains of water to have been added to A, and thirty or forty grains 
to B. Now, suppose the temperature to be slowly and uniformly raised 
around these globes; the water in 
each will go on evaporating at each 
temperature, being filled with steam 
of a density corresponding to that 
temperature, and the density being 
greater as the temperature increases. 
At last a point will be reached at 
which the whole of the water in globe 
A will be converted into steam; and 
at this point the mercury column will 
rise ata, and sink at 6. This is the 
saturation test, and the cause of its 
action will be easily seen. So long 
as vaporization went on in both A and 
B, and the temperature was main- 
tained uniform, each globe would contain steam of the same pressure, and 
the columns of mercury, a and b, would remain at the same level. But so 
soon as the water in A had vaporized, and the steam began to superheat, the 


64 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pressure in A would cease to remain uniform with the pressure in B, and the 
mercury column would at once fall, and thus indicate the difference. The 
instantaneous change of the position of the mercury is the indication of the 
point at which the temperature in the bath corresponds with the saturation 
point of the steam in A. 

To show the delicacy of this test, I may instance that, at two hundred and 
ninety degrees Fahrenheit, the mercury coiumn would rise nearly two inches 
for every degree of temperature above the saturation point, as the increase 
of pressure arising from vaporization is twelve times that arising from ex- 
pansion in superheating at that point, and a similar difference exists at other 
temperatures. 

The apparatus, as employed for experiment, varies according to the pres- 
sure and other circumstances of its use. Fig. 2 represents one of the 
arrangements which has been employed 
with success. It consists of a glass globe 
of about seventy cubic inches capacity; in 
which is placed, after a Torricellian vacuum 
has been formed, the weighed globule of 
water. The globe, with the stem, is shown 
at A; this is surrounded by a copper bower, 
B B, prolonged by a stout giass tube, C, 
enclosing the globe stem. This copper 
boiier forms the water and steam bath 
through which the globe is- heated, and, in 
fact, corresponds to the second globe, B, in 
the former figure. The fluctuating mer- 
cury column, or saturation gauge, is placed 
at the bottom of the tube, C, and the satu- 
ration point is indicated by the rise of the 
inner mercury column, a, and the fall, at 
the same time, of the outer mercury col- 
umn, 6. As soon as the whole of the 
waier in the giobe A is evaporated, there 
is an instantaneous rise of the inner mer- 
cury column to restore the balance of pres- 
sure, and that progressively with the rise 
of temperature. 

As an auxiliary apparatus, the boiler is 
provided with gas-jets, E, to heat it, and 
with an open oil bath, G, to retain the 
glass tubes at the same temperature as the 
boiler; and this oil bath is placed on a 
sand bath and also heated with gas. A 
thermometer, D, registers the temperature, 
and a pressure-gage, F, the pressure of the 
steam; and a blow-off cock, H, serves to 
reduce the temperature when necessary. - 
A number of results have already been 
oDtained, but they are not yet sufficiently 
advanced to be made public. The follow- 
ing numbers have been, however, approxi- 
maicly reduced from the theoretical formula above, and the experimental 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 65 


results may illustrate the use of this method of research. The most con- 
venient way of expressing the density of steam is by stating the number of 
volumes into which the water of which it is composed has expanded. Thus, 
one cubic inch of water expands into one thousand six hundred and seventy 
cubic inches of steam at two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit; into 
eizhteen hundred and eighty-two cubic inches at two hundred and fifty-one de- 
grees, and into four thousand cubic inches three hundred and four degrees, 

and soon. In this way, the following numbers have been computed: 


Volume of steam. 


Temperature. By formula. By experiment. 

2440 : ‘ : - 1,005 896 % 
DAD? - 5 : . 959 890 

257° : ; 5 790 651 

252° . = F C - 740 680 

268° : : 3 : 680 633 

270°. : ‘ 3 . 660 604 
288° ; : C . 240 490 


. 


These determinations, at pressures varying from ten pounds to fifty pounds 
above the atmosphere, are not accurate reductions from the experimental re- 
sults, but only approximations. But they uniformly show a decided deviation 
from the law for perfect gases, and in the direction anticipated by Professor 
Thomson, the density being uniformly greater than that indicated by the 
formula. I hope, by the time of the next meeting of the association, with 
the assistance of my friend Mr. Tate, to be enabled to lay before the section 
a series of results which will fully determine the value of superheated steam, 
and its density and volume compared with pressure at all pressures, varying 
from that of the atmosphere to five hundred pounds on the square inch. 


THE ATMOSPHERIC TELEGRAPH. 


The Atmospheric Telegraph, or device for transmiting small packages 
through air-tight tubes by atmospheric pressure, which was attempted to be 
introduced in this country some years since by Mr. Richardson, of Boston, 
has been recently put into practical operation by the International Telegraph 
Company of London. Their chief office in that city has been for some 
time in working communication not only with the Stock Exchange, but 
~ also with all the subordinate telegraph stations in the outskirts of London, 
and written messages are constantly transmitted through the tubes — thus 
avoiding the necessity of repeating each message. ‘‘ We witnessed,” says 
the London Times, “the apparatus doing its ordinary work the other day 
in the large telegraphic apartment of the company in Moorgate Street. 
Five metal tubes, of from two to three inches in diameter, are seen trained 
against the wall, and coming to an abrupt termination opposite the seat of 
the attendant who ministers to them. In connection with their butt-ends 
other smaller pipes are soldered on at right angles; these lead down to an 
air-pump below, worked by a small steam-engine. There is another air- 
pump and engine, of course, at the other end of the pipe, and thus suction 
is established to and fro through the whole length. Whilst we are looking 
at the largest pipe we hear a whistle; this is to give notice that a despatch 
is about to be put into the tube at Mincing Lane, two-thirds of a mile dis- 
tant. It will be necessary, therefore, to exhaust the air between the end we 


6* 


66 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


are watching and that point. A little trap-door—the mouth of the appara- 
tus —is instantly shut, a cock is turned, the air-pump below begins to suck, 
and in a few seconds you hear a soft thud against the end of the tube; the 
little door is opened, and a cylinder of gutta-percha, encased in flannel, about 
four inches long, which fits the tube, but loosely, is immediately ejected upon 
the counter; the cylinder is opened at one end, and there we find the des- 
patch. al 

“Now it is quite clear that it is only necessary to enlarge the tubes and 
to employ more powerful engines and air-pumps in order to convey a theu- 
sand letters and despatches, book parcels, etc., in the same manner. And 
this the company are forthwith about to do. At the present moment the 
contract rate at which the mail-carts go is eight miles per hour. The Pnen- 
matic Company can convey messages at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and 
this speed can be doubled if necessary. 

“The company are also about to lay down a pipe between the Dock and 
the Exchange, for the conveyance of samples of merchandise, thus practi- 
cally bringing the Isle of Dogs into Cornhill; and for all we know this in- 
vention may hereafter be destined to relieve the gorged streets of the metrop- 
olis of some of its heavy traific. 

“ At the station of the International Telegraph Company, in Telegraph 
Street, the pipes wind about from room to room, sufficient curve being main- 
tained in them for the passage of the little travelling cylinder which contains 
the message, and small packages and written communications traverse al- 
most as quickly in all directions as does the human voice in gutta-percha 
tubing, to which in fact it is the appropriate addendum.” « 


THE CLEARING OF DRAINS AND WATER-COURSES. 


Messrs. Easton & Amos, of London, have patented a curious method of 
adapting to some convenient part of a drain, sewer, or water-course, a grat- 
ing, of peculiar construction, whereby any extraneous solid matters, such as 
weeds, pieces of wood, brickbats, stones, the dead bodies of animals, or other 
substances, may be arresied in their progress, and removed, so as to prevent 
them from blocking up the water-course and stopping the flow of the water. 
To this end a chamber or recess is constructed at some convenient part of the 
drain, sewer, or water-course, and made to extend across it from side to side. 
In this chamber is mounted a movable grating in such a manner as to 
extend transversely across the whole of the water-way. The grating is to 
be formed of a suitable number of endless chains, connected together later- 
ally in any convenient manner, and provided with projecting pins, points, or 
hooks. Oranumber of short bars, similarly provided with projecting pins, 
may be jointed together in an endless séries, so as to form an endless grat- 
ing, which is to be passed round wheels or rollers mounted in the chamber 
or recess. This endless chain or grating should not be placed vertically, but 
at an inclination to the line of the drain or sewer. It will be understood that 
the water and liquid matters will pass freely through the endless chain or 
grating, but that solid matters of any great size or dimensions, or that would 
be likely to cause an obstruction in the water-course, will be arrested by the 
grating, and by causing the same to rotate (by communicating motion to the 
wheels or roilers on which the endless chain or grating is mounted), tle pins, 
points, or hooks attached to the grating will be caused to lift up such solid 
matters cut of the chamber formed in the drain, and deposit them in some 
receptacle provided above for that purpose. 


i 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 67 


NEW MICROMETER FOR MEASURING LARGE DISTANCES. 


At arecent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, England, Mr. Alvan 
Clark, of Boston, Mass., exhibited a micrometer, invented by himseif, which 
is capable of measuring with accuracy any distance up to about one degree. 
It is also furnished with a position-circle. Its character is essentially the 
same as that of the parallel-wire micrometer; but it has some peculiarities, 
not, it is believed, previcusly introduced, and on which its wide range de- 
pends. The most remarkable of these peculiarities consists in its being fur- 
nished with two eye-pieces, composed of small single lenses, mounted in sepa- 
rate frames, which slide in a groove, and can be separated to the required 
distance. A frame carrying two parallel spider-lines, each mounted sepa- 
rately with its own micrometer screw, slides in a dovetailed groove in front of 
the eye-pieces; and, by a free motion in this frame, each web can be brought 
opposite to its own eye-lens. In using this micrometer, the first step is to set 
the position-vernier to the approximate position of the objects to be meas- 
ured. Then the eye-lenses are separated till each is opposite to its own ob- 
ject. The frame containing the webs and their micrometer screws is then 
slidden into its place; and, the webs having been separated nearly to their 
proper distance by their free motion in the frame, they are placed precisely 
on the objects by their fine screws, the observer’s eye being carried rapidly 
from one eye-lens to the other a few times, till he is satisfied of the bisection 
of each of the objects by its own web. The frame is then removed for read- 
ing off the measure by means of an achromatic microscope, on the stage of 
which it is placed. One of the webs is brought to the intersection of cross- 
wires in the eye-piece of the microscope; and by turning a screw, the revo- 
lutions of which are counted, the frame travels before the microscope, and 
the other web is brought to the intersection of the cross-wires. The parts of 
a revolution are read off by a vernier from a large divided circle attached to 
the screw. The advantages arising from the peculiar construction of this 
micrometer are the following: 1. Distances can be observed with great ac- 
curacy up to about one degree, and the angles of position also. 2. The webs, 
being in the same plane, are free from parallax, and are both equally distinct, 
however high the magnifying power may be. 3. The webs are also free from 
distortion and from color. 4. A different magnifying power may be used on 
each of the objects; which may be advantageous in comparing a faint comet 
with a star. 


DRAWING FROM RELIEF MODELS. 


At the last meeting of the British Association, Captain Cybulz, of the 
Austrian army, called attention to a set of models intended to facilitate 
instruction in the manner of delineating the features of the ground on topo- 
graphical maps, and lately introduced into the technical schools of Austria. 
It is the first aim of the author to lead the pupil, by means of these models, 
to a correct understanding or appreciation of form, as the only way of pro- 
ducing a first-rate topographical draftsman. Instead, therefore, of setting 
him to imitate drawings from paper, his studies and copies will be made 
from models, and, at a more advanced stage, from nature itself. These 
models represent, firstly, inclined planes or slopes, separate, in combination, 
or insecting each other. It is from these the pupil acquires the first idea 
of the principle upon which depends a correct delineation of the ground. 


68 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Secondly, we have three models, which represent the most characteristic 
and most widely distributed features of the ground. Having acquired from 
the preceding a thorough knowledge of fundamental principles, the pupil 
will proceed to delineate upon paper the following models. These represent, 
firstly, an undulating country; secondly, a plateau formation, with deeply- 
cut valleys; thirdly and fourthly, some mountainous tracts. Contour lines 
have been laid down upon the whole of these models with mathematical 
accuracy. The horizontal projection of some of the most difficult sections 
has also been added, to illustrate the manner of filling up the contour lines 
and laying down auxiliary contours. It has not, however, been thought 
advisable to do more, as otherwise the pupils would avail themselves of 
these facilities to too great an extent. A small instrument for measuring 
the gradients, and a scale showing the intensity of the shading (hachorres) 
for various degrees of acclivity, are to be made use of in copying the models. 
The author believes that the use of models, judiciously selected, will engage 
the pupil’s uninterrupted attention; he will overcome mechanical difficulties 
with greater facility, and will not be so wearied as ‘by the tedious, but abor- 
tive, and, in reality, useless attempts to copy a topographical drawing placed 
before him. The author would add, that his models are made of galvano- 
plastic copper, and are therefore not so liable to breakage as plaster-of-Paris 
models. 


THE INDIA-RUBBER ARTIST. 


We have all of us laughed at the grotesque appearance made by toy heads 
of vulcanized India-rubber. A little lateral pressure converts its physiog- 
nomy into a broad grin, whilst a perpendicular pull gives the countenance 
all the appearance that presents itself when we look into the bowl of a spoon 
held longways. The pressure removed, the face returns to its normal con- 
dition. Of the thousands of persons who have thus manipulated this play- 
thing, it perhaps never struck one of them that in this perfect mobility lay 
the germ of a very useful invention, destined to be, we believe, of great prac- 
tical value in the arts. If we take a piece of sheet vulcanized India-rubber 
and draw a face upon it, exactly the same result is obtained. This fact, it 
appears, struck an observant person, and out of his observation has sprung 
a patent process, worked by a company under the name of the “ Electro 
Printing-Block Company,” for enlarging and diminishing at pleasure, to any 
extent, all kinds of drawings and engravings. It must be evident that if a 
piece of this material can be enlarged equally in all directions, the different 
lines“of the drawing that is made upon it in a quiescent condition must’ 
maintain the same relative distance between each other in its extended 
state, and be a mathematically correct amplification of the original draft. 
The material used is a sheet of vulcanized India-rubber, prepared with a 
surface to take lithographic ink; this is attached to a movable framework 
of steel, which expands by means of very fine screws. On this prepared 
surface lines are drawn at right angles; these are for the purposes of meas- 
urement only. The picture to be enlarged is now printed upon its face in 
the usual way; and supposing it is to be amplified four-fold, the screw 
framework is stretched until one of the squares formed by the intersection 
of the lines measures exactly four times the size it did while in a state of 
rest. It is now lifted on to a lithographic stone, and printed, and from the 
impression copies are worked off in the usual manner. If the picture has to 
be worked with type, the enlarged impression has of course to be made 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 69 


= 

from block plates, the printing lines of which stand up like those of a wood- 
cut. This is accompiished by printing the picture, with prepared ink, upon a 
metal plate; the piate is then subjected to voltaic action, which eats away 
the metal, excepting those parts protected by the ink. Where it is required 
to make a reduced copy of a drawing, the process is inverted; that is, the 
vulcanized India-rubber sheet is stretched in the frame before the impression 
is made upon it. It must be evident that, on its being allowed to contract 
to its original size, it wiil bear a reduced picture upon its surface, from which 
the copies are printed. 

The application of this art to map-work is very apparent. Let us instance 
the ordnance maps. Both enlargements and reductions of the original scale 
oa which they were drawn have been made in the ordinary way at an enor- 
mous expense, the greater part of which might have been avoided had this 
process been known. As it is, we have gone to work in a most expensive 
manner. The survey for the whole of England was made on the very small 
scale of one inch to the mile for the country, and of six inches to the mile 
for towns, and now there is a cry for an enlarged scale of twenty-five inches 
to the mile. In other countries, comparatively speaking, poor to England, 
this scale has been far exceeded. For instance, even poverty-stricken Spain 
is mapped on the enormous scale of as many as sixty-three inches to the 
nile. 

But with this question we have nothing to do; our purpose is only to 
show that it would be a great saving if the twenty-five inch scale had been 
originally carried out, as with this new precess all the smaller scales could 
have been produced with perfect accuracy from this one at a very small 
cost. % 7 

Indeed, the public could, if they wish, have pocket fac-simile copies of 
that gigantic map of England and Scotland on the twenty-five inch scale, 
which, according to Sir M. Peto, would be larger than the London Docks, 
and would require the use of a ladder to examine even a county. The new 
art is applicable to engravings of every kind; and, moreover, it can very 
profitably reproduce type itself in an enlarged or reduced form. This is a 
fact of great importance to all Bible societies; for encrmous sums are spent 
in producing this work in all imaginable sizes. But, it will be asked, what 
advantage does this method present over a resetting of the page in the usual 
manner? Two very important ones — speed and price. Let us suppose, for 
instance, that we wish to make a reduction of a royal octavo University Bible 
to a demy octavo. The price of resetting the type alone would be £800, 
and the “reading for corrections” another £300 at the least. Now, an 
identical copy could be produced by the process employed by the Company 
for £120; there would be no charge for “ reading,” as the copy is a fac-simile. 
Where there are many rules, marginal notes, and different kinds of types, 
as in Polyglott Bibles, the advantage of reproducing by the India-rubber 
process would be, of course, proportionately greater. 

We may mention another power possessed by the new method, which 
will prove very valuable to publishers. It sometimes happens that when a 
new edition of a work.is called for, some of the original blocks, or stereo- 
typed impressions, are found to be wanting. Heretofore new drawings and 
engravings would have to be made; but now, all this difficulty is obviated 
by simply taking the engraved page ont of the old book, and reproducing 
the biock required from it. This actually occurred with respect to the well- 
known work ‘‘ Bell on the Hand,” the missing blocks of which have been 


70 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


reproduced from some old printed pages. It is scarcely known yet how 
many centuries may clapse cre the ink of cld books becomes so dry that it 
cannot be transferred by the new process; but it is quite certain that a 
couple of hundred years does not so far dry it as to render it incapable of 
giving an impression, so that we may have the earliest folio copies of Shak- 
speare’s plays reproduced with cxactness, in more available sizes, through 
the medium of a few sheets of India-rubber. — Once-a- Week. 


COPYING-PAPER. 


Copying-paper, into the body of which a certain proportion of protosul- 
phate of iron (copperas) has been introduced, either during the manufacture 
or afterwards, by passing it between rollers covered with felt impregnated 
with a solution of salt, is much more advantageous in use than the com- 
mon paper. A letter written with common ink containing an infusion of 
nutgalls, or having the tanno-gallate of iron for its base, and covered with 
the above copying-paper, gives, by means of the press, a perfect fac-simile. 
If a little sugar or pro-gallic acid is added to the ink, a good copy may be 
had by pressing lightly the copying-paper upon the latter without the use of 
the press, taking only the precaution to interpose between the hand and the 
sheet of copying-paper another sheet of oiled paper, over which the rubbing 
must be done. — Cosmos. 


NEW METHOD OF PRINTING MUSIC. 


A new method of engraving and printing music has been introduced at 
Paris. It is analogous to the method of carving wood by burning the pat- 
tern in. The music is stamped into blocks of wood with heated stamps, 
which have a shoulder to insure their penetrating to an equal depth. From 
this block a stereotype cast is taken. An edition of fifteen hundred copies, 
if stereotyped and printed by this method, is said to cost only about one- 
third as much as if engraved and printed from the engraved plate. 


S. W. FRANCIS’ WRITING-MACHINE. 


This machine is placed in a neat, portable writing-case, about two feet 
square and ten inches deep, which may be carried about and used on any 
ordinary table. It is worked by means of keys placed on a key-board like 
those of a piano, each key representing a letter of the alphabet, and each 
letter producing its impression at a common centre. An endless narrow 
tape stretches the full length of the “bed” of the machine, passing over a 
small roller at either end, and uniting underneath. This tape is saturated 
with the ink. 

Directly in the centre of the “bed,” and under the tape, is a circular hole 
of one inch diameter.. Over this hole, and under the tape, on a car, a sheet 
of paper is placed;, then a sheet of tissue paper directly over it, leaving the 
tape between the two sheets of paper. A delicate frame then falls upon the 
paper, which keeps it in place, and moves while the printing progresses. 

A short steel rod then falls from a suspended arm, so as to present a flat 
surface, or platin, in the centre, directly over the paper. The lids being 
raised from the keys, they are played upon as in a piano, each being let- 
tered from A to Z, with the various punctuation marks, ete. The numbers 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 71 


are represented by letters, as CVIII. for one hundred and eight, and so on, 
and the capitals are designated by a single dash at the top of the requisite 
letter. 

Each key, when struck, acts upon an independent lever within the 
machine, attached to a little elbow and arm, on the end of which is the 
corresponding letter-type, which now strikes the under sheet of paper and 
presses against the platin on the suspended steel rod, so that, the inked tape 
being between the two sheets of paper, the blow leaves the letter printed on 
each, namely, on the upper side of the lower sheet, and, of course, on the 
lower side of the upper, when brought in contact with the tape. 

As the printing goes on, the paper moves steadily to the left; and when 
the line is within four letters of its end, a little bell rings spontancously to 
notify the writer that he must touch a spring which pushes the sheet up the 

.space of one line, and back, to begin again; and as the printing of the new 
line goes on, the paper travels back another line; and so on, till the page is 
completed. 

The letters can be formed of any sized type, engraved for the purpose, 
and suiting the taste of the purchaser. Those who use this “‘ Writing 
Printer” will be enabled to strike off two copies in less time than is re- 
quired to produce one with the pen; and for clergymen, merchants, editors, 
and literary men, it must prove of great value. The price of the machine 
is one hundred dollars, which is as cheap as a good sewing-machine, while 
the art of working it is not more difficult. The inventor is 8. W. Francis, of 
New York City. 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON THE ART OF CALICO PRINTING. 


The following lectures on the progress of calico printing are communicated 
to the London Engineer by Prof. F. Crace Calvert, F. R. S. 

Pencilling and Block Printing. — During the early part of this century, the 
production of designs upon calico were performed by means of hand-blocks, 
made of sycamore or pear-tree wood. The face of the block was either 
carved in relief into the desired pattern, like ordinary wood-cuts, or the fig- 
ure was formed by the insertion, edgewise into the wood, of narrow strips 
of flattened copper wire, and the patterns were finished by the hand labor of 
women, with small brushes called pencillings. Owing to a strike amongst 
the block printers, in 1815, to resist the threatened introduction of machin- 
ery, great efforts were made on the part of the employers to render them- 
selves independent of hand labor; and the result has been the gradual 
introduction of cylinder printing. 

Engraving. — The first kind of roller used was made by bending a sheet 
of copper into a cylinder, soldering the joint with silver, and then engrav- 
ing upon the continuous surface thus obtained. 

The second improvement consisted in producing the pattern on copper 
cylinders obtained by casting, boring, drawing, and hammering. In this 
case, the pattern is first engraved in intaglio upon a roller of softened steel 
of the necessary dimensions. This roller is then hardened, and introduced 
into a press of peculiar construction, where, by rotary pressure, it transfers 
its design to a similar roller in the soft state, and the die being in intaglio, 
the latter, called the “mill,” is in relief. This is hardened in its turn, and, 
by proper machinery, is made to convey its pattern to the full-sized copper 
roller. This improvement alone reduced the cost of engraving on copper 


7 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


rollers many hundred per cent., and, what is of far greater importance, 
made practicable an infinite number of intricate engravings which could 
never have been produced by hand labor applied directly to the roller. 

A further improvement was made by tracing with a diamond on the 
copper roller, covered with varnish, the most complicated patterns, by 
means of eccentrics, and then etching. 

The combination of mill engraving with the tracing and etching processes 
naturally followed, adding immensely to the resources of the engraver and 
printer in the production of novel designs. 

Another development of this art is the tracing of patterns on the surface 
of rollers, which has been effected by machines constructed on the principle 
of the pentagraph. Although this invention dates from 1854, still it is only 
of late years that it has been successfully applied. , 

But if mechanical art has greatly assisted the engraver, chemistry has» 
rendered him equally important services, by enabling him to abandon costly 
and cumbrous modes of impressing by force the designs on the cylinder, 
substituting for them a great number of etching processes. By some of these 
processes, as by every other addition to the resources of the engraver, an 
entirely new and beautiful class of engraving is produced, unattainable by 
any other known means. 

A very recent improvement is highly interesting in a scientific point of 
view. It is the application of galvanism to the diamond tracer. By com- 
bining the galvanic action with the eccentric motion, most beautiful and 
delicate engravings can be produced. This is effected by tracing the pat- 
tern with a varnish on a zine cylinder, which is so placed in the engraving 
machine that, as a needle passes over its surface, and comes in contact with 
the zinc, the galvanic current is established, and, by simple machinery, causes 
the diamond to trace the corresponding pattern on the copper roller. The 
communication is so rapid and so precise, that this invention of Mr. Gaiffe, 
of Paris, bids fair to produce very important results. Galvanism is also 
made use of for producing effects on roller surfaces by depositing copper 
thereon. 

To give an idea of the extraordinary influence which the introduction of 
machinery and improvements in engraving have had in cheapening the cost 
of printed calicoes, | may state that large furniture patterns, such as are 
required for Turkish, Egyptian, and Persian markets, into which sixteen 
colors and shades enter, would have cost formerly from thirty to thirty-five 
shillings per piece, because they would have required sixteen distinct appli- 
cations of as many different blocks, and would have occupied more than a 
week in printing, where the same piece can now be printed in one single 
operation, which takes. three minutes, and costs five or six shillings. So 
rapid is the progress of one branch of manufacture in connection with 
another, that it has only recently been possible to produce the rollers capa- 
ble of performing this operation, that is to say, cylinders of copper forty- 
three inches in circumference by forty-four inches long. For light styles of 
printing, the time required to print a piece of thirty-six yards is not more 
than one minute. ia 

Chemistry. — But the discovery which has exercised more influence than 
any other on the progress of calico printing is the application of chlorine 
gas as a bleaching agent. Previously to the employment of this gas (chiefly 
as bleaching powder), the imperfect bleaching of a piece of calico required 
six weeks; and as it had to be exposed to the action of the atmesphere, a 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 73 


large surface of land was required. Further, at that time, bleachers had to 
use potashes imported from Canada; whereas, at the present time, thanks to 
the progress of chemical knowledge, not only is soda-ash manufactured in 
this country, but, by the application of bleaching powder, calicoes are much 
better bleached in twenty-four hours than they were formerly by a six weeks’ 
exposure to the atmosphere; and even when an extra cleaning and whiteness 
are required, as for madder goods, only two days are necessary. The aid of 
machinery renders possible the continuous process, that is to say, several 
hundred pieces of gray calico are sewn together, end to end, and made to pass 
from one operation to another, without any pause, until they are bleached. 
So rapid and economical is this method that the cost of bleaching a piece 
of calico does not exceed one or two pence. Chlorine, again, renders a 
great_service to the calico printer, by enabling him, after his madder goods 
have been produced and soaped, to obtain fine whites without the necessity 
. of exposing them for several days in the meadows to the action of the at- 
mosphere. In fact, the discovery of garancine and alizarine, and their appli- 
cation to calico printing, have facilitated the production of madder styles at 
very low cost, as the whites of such goods require no soaping, and only a 
little bleaching or cleaning powder. 

Cotton has this peculiarity, as distinguished from wool and silk, that it will 
not fix any organic color, excepting indigo, without the interposition of a 
mordant, which is generally a metallic oxide or salt. The two most impor- 
tant discoveries in connection with this necessity of calico printing were, 
first, that made in 1820, by Mr. George Wood, of Bankbridge, who found 
out the means of preparing calicoes with peroxide of tin, which enabled 
printers to produce a large variety of prints called steam goods; and, sec- 
ondly, that of Walter Crum, Esq., F. R. S., who, in a paper presented to the 
British Association, at Aberdeen, in 1859, showed that the tedious process of 
ageing madder mordants for three or four days might be dispensed with by 
passing the goods, during a quarter of an hour, through a moist atmosphere, 
at a temperature of 80° to 100°, where the mordants absorb the required 
quantity of moisture, and then rapidly undergo the chemical changes neces- 
sary to fitthem for producing the black, purple, lilac, red, pink, and choco- 
late colors, which the madder root will yield immediately in the dyebeck, 
according to the nature of the mordant previously fixed in the cloth. 

As it is impossible in the brief space of an hour to convey an idea how va- 
rious colors are produced on prints, I shall confine my remarks to illustrating 
the interesting fact that abstruse science has brought to light various sub- 
stances which have lately proved valuable accessories to the resources of the 
calico printer. Thus Dr. Prout, some thirty or forty years ago, made the 
curious discovery that uric acid possessed the property of giving a beautiful 
red color, when heated with nitric acid, and then brought into contact with 
ammonia. The substance thus obtained was further examined by Messrs. 
Liebig and Wohler, in a series of researches which have been considered as 
amongst the most important ever made in organic chemistry; and this sub- 
stance they call murexide. In the course of these investigations they also 
discovered a white crystalline substance, called alloxan. For twenty years 
both these substances were only to be found in the laboratory; but in 1851, 
Dr. Saac observed that alloxan, when in contact with the hand, tinged it red. 
This led him to infer that alloxan might be employed to dye woollens red; 
and further experiments convinced him that if woollen cloths were prepared 
with peroxide of tin, passed through a solution of alloxan, and then sub- 


7 


\ 


74 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


mitted to a gentle heat, a most beautiful and delicate pink color resulted. 
Subsequently, murexide was employed and applied successfully by Mr. De- 
pouilly, of Paris, to dyeing wool and silk, and to printing calicoes, by the 
aid of oxide of lead and chloride of mercury as mordants; but the great 
obstacle to its extensive use was the difficulty of obtaining uric acid in suffi- 
cient quantity for its manufacture. The idea soon occurred to chemists to 
extract it from guano; and this is the curious source whence the chief sup- 
ply of uric acid is obtained, and which enables Edmund Potter, Esq., and 
other printers, to preduce the color called Tyrian purple. 

Another example will be found in the successive scientific discoveries which 
have led to the discovery of the recently popular color, mauve. Lichens, 
which have been the subject of extensive researches on the part of Robi- 
quet, Heeren, Sir Robert Kane, Dr. Schunck, and especially of Dr. Stenhouse, 
have yielded to those chemists several new and colorless organic substances, 
which, under the influence of air and ammonia, give rise to most brilliant 
colors, and amongst these are orchil and litmus. Dr. Stenhouse, in a most 
elaborate paper published by the Royal Society in 1848, pointed out two im- 
portant facts: first, that the color-giving acids could be easily extracted from 
the weed by macerating it in lime-water, from which the coloring matters 
were easily separated by means of an acid; and, secondly, the properties of 
certain coloring acids, which gave M. Marnas, of Lyons, the key which ena- 
bled him to produce commercially from lichens a fast mauve and purple, 
which, up to 1857, had been considered impossible of attainment. 

The commercial production by Mr. W. H. Perkin of another purple at the 
same time is not less interesting. Some thirty or forty years ago, Dr. Runge 
obtained from coal-tar six substances, amongst which was one called kyanol, 
which substance was thoroughly examined by Dr. Hoffman, who proved it 
to be an organic alkaloid, and identical with a substance known as aniline. 
Owing to the subsequent study of this substance by this chemist, and the 
discovery that it yielded a beautiful purple color when placed in contact with 
bleaching powder, his pupil, Mr. Perkin, was induced to make experiments 
with a view of producing commercially a fast purple, in which he succeeded. 
The process devised by this chemist is exceedingly simple, and consists in 
oxidizing aniline by means of bi-chromate of potash and sulphuric acid. 

More recently, M. Renard found a method of producing also from aniline, 
by means of chlorine compounds, a most splendid rose color, called by him 
Suchsiachine; and within a few months Mr. Price has also succeeded in pro- 
ducing from aniline, by the employment of peroxide of lead, either a fast 
purple, or a pink, called by him roseine, and a fast blue, according to the 
mode of operating. All these colors require special mordants to fix them on 
calicoes or muslins, such as albumen, lactarine, and cther azotized principles. 

In concluding, I cannot give a better idea of the immense magnitude of the 
calico-printing trade of Great Britain, than by quoting the number of yards 
exported, which amounted in 1858 to nearly eight hundred millions. 


MINIATURE AND ENAMEL PAINTING. 


Painting in miniature is in danger of becoming one of the lost arts. Pho- 
tography has been carried to such a degree of perfection, is so accurate as to 
mere likeness, and is, withal, afforded so cheaply, that it is rapidly taking 
the place of portraits upon ivory. Artists who have hitherto devoted them- 
selves to this branch of the art are now either turning their attention to 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS.. 75 


painting upon canvass, or find employment as finishers of the photographic 
miniatures. To this, indeed, is owing, in a large measure, the satisfaction 
which the photographs give, for something of the value of the old miniature 
in colors is retained where the work is skilfully done, and the inevitable 
faults of the instrument are, in some degree, corrected. The following 
historical sketch of the art, which seems thus to be going out, and of enamel 
painting, which photography is also in some degree supplanting, is instruc- 
tive and entertaining. 

Miniature painting, since the invention of printing superseded the art of 
the calligrapher and illuminator, has been confined principally to portrai- 
ture, and the ancient vellum has been discarded for ivory and enamel. Ivory 
is preferred for the soft semi-transparency of its texture, which communi- 
cates a peculiar delicacy to the colors, especially the carnations or flesh tints. 
The ivory being cut in thin sheets, requires however, on account of this 
property, something perfectly white and not liable to tarnish, at the back, 
to serve as a foil; otherwise the effect of the painting might be quite de- 
stroyed by the darkness of the surface behind showing through. Ivory and 
enamel being quite smooth, and without texture or absorbency, it is impos- 
sible to spread a flat tint. With the most dextrous handling, a little heap 
of color will collect where the brush first touches or leaves the surface, and 
the intervening space, which it may have been intended to cover with an 
even ‘‘wash,”’ will present something of the irregularity of a flow of water 
on agreasy plate or polished table. Hence it becomes necessary to fill up 
the interstices of these irregularities with hatchings and stipplings. The 
point and steel scraper are both used, to more rapidly procure the desired 
gradation, as well as to obtain mechanical regularity in the stippling, which 
has been much sought for, particularly by French artists. It is true that the 
labor thus involved may be avoided in certain parts by the use of body- 
colors—that is to say, colors rendered opaque by the addition of white. 
But body-color washes, from their unmanageable nature on ivory, can only 
be used in portions which can be covered at once, or do not require much 
finish, such as backgrounds and draperies; and here the surface of the 
ivory is of course sacrificed. Body-color applied in this way will give an 
even, flat gradation in a background, and impart a cloth-like effect to the 
representation of the modern male costume; but from the difficulty of calcu- 
lating when “wet” the difference of tone the body-color will assume when 
dry, it is useless for flesh painting, if spread in coats so as to cover the ivory. 
Opaque and semi-opaque pigments, of earthy and mineral extraction, were, 
we know, used in the flesh by the ancient painters on vellum; but then they 
were lightly stippled, not loaded; and such pigments may be worked trans- 
parently in the same way on ivory, though the modern miniature painters 
prefer the more transparent colors. Where body-color, therefore, is laid on 
in certain parts, so as to cover the surface, and the ivory shows through in 
other portions, the work can scarcely be harmonious. For this reason the 
use of body-colors, which were extensively and are still employed by French 
miniature painters, has been discontinued by the English artists of the pres- 
ent century. Gum-water is the only vehicle besides simple water employed 
with the transparent or body colors. 

The large size of modern miniatures may excite some curiosity as to how 
a sheet of ivory can be obtained so much larger than the diameter of the 
largest elephant’s tusk, especially when it is known that the sheet is not 
joined, as might be supposed. The tusk is simply sawn circularly — in other 


76 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


words, round its circumference; the ivory is then steamed, and flattened 
under hydraulic pressure, and finally mounted with caoutchouc on a mahog- 
any panel. 

Enamel painting has the great recommendation of being perfectly inde- 
structible. Specimens of this art applied to pottery are now in existence 
which have not changed their hues during three thousand years. The 
enamel tints on Egyptian idols, scarabei, necklaces, etc., are precisely sim- 
ilar to the colors now produced by the enameller. The difficulty of hand- 
ling the brush is quite as great as in painting on ivory. But a far greater 
technical difficulty is that of calculating the exact effect of the process 
of firing the enamel, in altering the hues of the several applications of 
color. Fine coloring is therefore rarely found in enamels. Moreover, the 
enamel painter’s list of pigments is limited to those prepared from metallic 
oxides, and many metals are perfectly useless on account of the high degree 
of heat to which enamel paintings are subjected. Modern science has, how- 
ever, done much to supply this deficiency. The colors are mixed with oil 
of spike or lavender, or with spirits of turpentine. These essential oils 
volatilize rapidly under the effect of heat, but the fixed oils would cause the 
enamel to blister. The ordinary brushes of the painter in water colors are 
used, 

We extract the following valuable remarks on enamel painting, and 
account of the process employed by the artists of the present day, from a 
communication to the Art Journal, in 1859, by an enamel painter of reputa- 
tion. He says: “Pictures in enamel of any importance as works of art 
have been very rarely produced until within the last eighty or ninety years; 
for, although Petitot, in the reign of Louis XIV., drew with exquisite neat- 
ness, he seldom produced enamels which aimed at more than microscopic 
finish and accurate drawing of the human head. His works generally 
measure from about an inch and a half to two inches in diameter, and are 
usually either circular or oval. It was reserved for modern times to try a 
bolder flight, and the result has been that enamel paintings are now pro- 
duced with every possible excellence in art. The rich depth of Rembrandt 
and Reynolds ean be perfectly rendered, together with ail their peculiarities 
of handling and texture; and the delicacy of the most beautiful miniature 
of ivory may be successfully competed with. As regards size, enamels are 
now painted measuring as much as sixteen inches by eighteen, and fifteen 
inches by twenty. The kind of enamel used for pictorial purposes is 
called ‘ Venetian white hard enamel;’ it is composed of silica, borax, and 
oxide of tin. The following is a brief description of procedure in the art of 
enameling: 

““To make a plate for the artist to paint upon: A piece of gold or copper 
(usually gilt) being chosen, of the requisite dimensions, and varying from 
about an eighteenth to a sixteenth of an inch in thickness, is covered with 
pulverized enamel, and passed through the fire until it becomes of a bright 
white-heat; another coat of enamel is then added, and the plate again fired ; 
afterwards a thin layer of substance called flux is laid upon the surface of 
the enamel, and the plate undergoes the action of heat for the third time. 
It is now ready for the painter to commence his picture upon. ‘ Flux’ 
partakes of the nature of glass and enamel: it is semi-transparent, and 
liquefies more easily in the furnace than enamel. When flux is spread over 
a plate, it imparts to it a brilliant surface, and renders it capable of recciv- 
ing the colors; every color, during its manufacture, is mixed with a smail 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 77 


quantity of flux; thus, when the picture is fired, the flux of the plate unites 
with the flux of the color, and the coloring pigment is perfectly excluded 
from the air by being surrounded by a dense vitrified mass. From this will 
be understood the indelible — and we might almost say eternal — nature of 
enamel. 

“The plate undergoes the process of firing after each layer of color is 
spread over the whole surface. This process corresponds to the drying of 
the pigments in oil or water-color painting before the artist ventures to 
retouch his work. Sometimes highly-finished enamel requires fifteen or 
twenty firings. Great care must be taken to paint without errors of any 
kind, as the colors cannot be painted out or taken off, as ia water or gil, 
after they have once been vitrified, without incurring excessive trouble and 
loss of time. If the unfortunate artist miscalculates the effect of the fire 
on his pigments, his only alternative is to grind out the tainted spot with 
pounded flint and an agate muller; and so hard is the surface, that a square 
inch will probably take him a whole day to accomplish.” 


THE IVORY TRADE. 


The principal source of supply of ivory is Africa—much of it coming 
from the interior by way of Egypt and the Nile. Until within a few years 
the Egyptian pashas made trading up and down the Nile a monopoly; now, 
Egyptian, French, German, and English merchants explore the remote re- 
sources of the river, not for the purposes of science, but for those of com- 
merce. fn the last report of sales of ivory in London, the head-quarters of 
this traffic, we find that eighty-five thousand pounds of the ivory sold was 
**Eeyptian;”’ that is, found its way to civilization through Egypt. 

That Africa was the source whence the ancients of southern Europe drew 
their supply, we learn from Pliny the Younger, who says that the vast con- 
sumption of ivory for articles of luxury compelled the Romans to seek for it 
in another hemisphere, “as Africa had ceased to furnish elephants’ tusks 
except of the smallest kind.” 

After the overthrow of the Roman Empire, the commerce between Europe 
and Africa was suspended for centuries. At length the enterprise of Portu- 
gal, the eldest daughter — the Lusitania — of Rome, opened anew Africa and 
India. In the meantime, the lordly elephant had multiplied in his native 
forests, and if the long tusks were secured by the natives, they served merely 
the plebeian purposes of door-posts, or the defences of wooden idols. Battell, 
a quaint old Englishman, who served in the early Portuguese armies, says 
that the Africans “‘had their idols of wood, fashioned like a negro, and at 
the feet thereof was a great heap of elephants’ teeth, containing three or four 
tons of them.’’ It is a well-known fact that the inhabitants of Angola and 
Congo, when the Portuguese first occupied those coasts, were found to have 
preserved an immense number of elephants’ teeth, the accumulation of cen- 
turies. For a long time this ivory was exported in vessels of Portugal to 
various parts of Europe; and this traffic formed one of the most lucrative 
branches of the early modern trade with Africa. About the middle of the 
seventeenth century this store became exhausted, and the sons of Ethiopia 
were instigated to imitate their ancestors in renewing the battle with the wide- 
eared, long-tusked Elephas Africanus. 

To-day, the amount of ivory consumed in the workshops of Europe, 
America, and India, is immense; and yet, great as it is, the continent of 

7* 


78 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Africa furnishes seven-eighths of all that is worked up into ornaments, toys, 
and crucifixes in France; heathen gods, boxes, and fans in India and China; 
billiard-balls, boxes, miniature plates, chessmen, mathematical rules, keys 
for piano-fortes, organs and melodeons, fans, combs, folders, dominoes, and 
a thousand and one other things, in England, Germany, and the United 
States. 

Portugal was the England of the sixteenth century in more respects than 
one. For two centuries Portugal held, in the East and on the African coast, 
the power and influence now in the hands of England. Lisbon at that time 
was the head of the ivory market; now London is the mart where ivory- 
dealers most do congregate. It sometimes occurs that the Salem and other 
American merchants engaged in the African trade ship their tusks — or teeth, 
in commercial parlance — to London after they have brought them from the 
Zanzibar and Mozambique coast to the United States. In the world’s great 
metropolis there occurs at regular intervals one of those sales which furnish 
the manufactures with their stock of elephants’ teeth. 

While we associate ivory and India together, but very little of the former 
comes from the latter. It is estimated that to supply ivory to the British 
market for the Jast few years, it has required about 1,000,000 lbs. annually. 
Of this quantity, Ceylon, the great elephant park of India, furnishes only 509 
or 600 tusks. The ivory which is put down in the printed reports of sales 
as ‘‘ Bombay,” in nine cases out of ten is shipped by Mohammedan mer- 
chants from the east coast of Africa to the large north-western commercial 
emporium of Bombay. We do not mean, however, to assert that no ele- 
phants’ tusks come from Asia; for occasionally there will be small lots come 
from Ceylon and Sumatra. There is also a large ivory trade between Zanzi- 
bar and China, via Bombay. A great deal of ivory, we may state, by the 
way, now reaches the United States directly from Africa. 

The immense demand for elephants’ teeth has of late years increased the sup- 
ply from all parts of Africa. At the end of the last century the annual aver- 
age importation into England was only 192,500 Ibs. ; in 1827 it reached 364,784 
Ibs., or 6,080 tusks, which would require the death of at least 3,040 male ele- 
phants. Itis probable that the slaughter is much greater, for the teeth of 
the female elephant are very small; and Burchell tells us, in his African tray- 
els, that he met with some elephant-hunters who had shot twelve huge fel- 
lows, which, however, altogether produced no more than 200 lbs. of ivory. 
To produce 1,000,000 lbs. of ivory, the present annual English import, we 
should require — estimating each tusk at 60 Ibs. —the life of 8,333 male ele- 
phants. It is said that 4,000 tuskers suffer death every year to supply the 
United States with combs, knife-handles, billiard-balls, ete. ete. 

A tusk weighing 70 lbs. and upwards is considered by dealers as first-class. 
Cuvier formed a table of the most remarkble tusks of which any account has 
been given. The largest on record was one which was sold at Amsterdam, 
which weighed 350 lbs. In the late sales at London, the largest of the ‘‘ Bom- 
bay and Zanzibar” was 122 lbs.; of “‘ Angola and Lisbon,” 69 Ibs.; of “Cape 
of Good Hope and Natal,” 106 Ibs.; of ‘‘ Cape Coast Castle, Lagos,” ete., 
114 Ibs.; of “Gaboon,” 91 Ibs.; ‘‘ Egyptian,” 114 lbs. But it must not be 
inferred from this that large tusks are now rare. On the contrary, it is 
probable that more long and heavy teeth are now brought to market than in 
any previous century. 

A short time ago Julius Pratt & Co. cut up, at their establishment in Meri- 
den, Ci., a tusk that was nine and a half feet long, eight inches in diameter, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 79 


and which weighed nearly two hundred pounds. The same firm, in 1851, sent 
to the World’s Fair, London, the widest, finest, and largest piece of iyory 
ever sawed out. By machinery, invented in their own factory, they sawed 
out (and the process of sawing did the work of polishing at the same time) a 
strip of ivory forty-one feet long and twelve inches wide. It took the pre- 
cedence of all the specimens sent in by Engiand, France, or Germany, and 
received rewarding attention from the Commissioners. 

The most costly tusks, or portions of the tusks, are those which are used 
for billiard-balls. What are termed “‘ cut-points” of just the right size for 
billiard-balls, from 23 to 23 inches in diameter, brought the highest price 
(£25) per cut of any ivory offered in the London market at the late sales. 
Billiard-ball making has of late become a very important item of manufacture 
in this country. 

The teeth from the west coast, with the exception of ‘‘ Gaboon,” are less 
elastic and Jess capable of bleaching than those that come from other por- 
tions of Africa. The west coast tusks are much used for knife-handles. 
Since the French have possessed Algeria, France receives a considerable 
portion of ivory from Central Africa by the large caravans that travel from 
Timbuctoo northward. 

Ivory is also furnished by the walrus, or sea-horse, and commands a price 
equal to the best qualities of elephant ivory. It is, however, too hard and 
non-elastic for many purposes, and has the disadvantage of being too small 
to cut up profitably. 


NON-INFLAMMABLE FABRICS. 


In the long list of casualties that we are frequently called upon to read, 
appear too often the accounts of women and children burned to death by 
the ignition of their clothing. The frequency of these accidents is startling 
and painful, not only here, but in those countries where the same style and 
material in dress prevails. As these causes generally occur in consequence 
of an immediate contact with the burning coals of a grate or stove, it seems 
but just to conclude that the present mode of wearing extended skirts ren- 
ders the risk much greater, and increases the danger of a fatal sacrifice to 
fashion. Some of the garments of women are extremely inflammable, and 
these are worn so near to the person that it becomes next to impossible, in 
case of their ignition, to divest the wearer of them until she is seriously 
injured. This is particularly the case with the lighter materials of which 
party and evening dresses are composed; and this fact should impress itself 
upon the public mind here, as it has in England, where the Queen, a short 
time since, requested the Master of the Mint, Professor Graham, to super- 
intend a series of experiments with a view to determine if these fabrics 
could by easy means be rendered non-inflammable. The professor entrusted 
the inquiry to two distinguished chemists, Dr. Oppenheim and Mr. Versmann. 

From an articie on the subject, contributed by Robert Hunt to the London 
Art Journal, we learn the prominent points of their report. They com- 
mence by stating some of the peculiarities of cotton and linen, and then 
enumerate the numerous articles which have been from time to time em- 
ployed and recommended by different parties to render them flame-proof, 
such as alum, borax, silicate and carbonate of potash, sulphate of iron, sul- 
phate of lime, the chloride of ammonium, and other salts of ammonia; but 
state that none of these experiments resulted satisfactorily. 


80 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Experimenting upon the sulphate of ammonia, as recommended by Guy- 
Lussac, they further state that a solution containing seven per cent. of the 
crystals, or sixty-two per cent. of anhydrous salt, is perfectly anti-flamma- 
ble, and add: “ Tungstate of soda ranges among the salts which can be manu- 
factured on a large scale, at a cheap rate. A solution containing twenty 
per cent. renders the muslin perfectly non-inflammable. It acts, apparently, 
by firmly enveloping the fibre, and thereby exciuding the contact with the 
air. It is very smooth, and of a fatty appearance, like talc, and this prop- 
erty facilitates the ironing process, which all other salts resist.””, And again: 
‘For all laundry purposes the tungstate of soda can only be recommended.” 

The following formula is given as having proved efficacious, and will 
simplify the application: ‘‘ A concentrated neutral solution of tungstate of 
soda is diluted with water to twenty-eight degrees Twaddle,—an alkalio- 
meter so called, — and then mixed with three per cent. of phosphate of soda. 
This solution was found to keep and to answer well. It has been intro- 
duced into her Majesty’s laundry, where it is constantly used.” 

The solution can be applied to any fabric. It is only necessary to dip the 
cleansed article in the prepared fluid, and then drain and dry it, after which 
it may be ironed; or, if preferred, the solution may be incorporated with 
the starch to be used in the stiffening. Although the above are not the only 
experiments that have been tried in Europe, yet they are, perhaps, the most 
successful, and the result should be accepted, and the advice followed, 
wherever these fabrics are used. The lightest materials, when submitted to 
this preparation, may char and shrivel, but they will not blaze. As the 
usual solicitude and warnings will not avert the fatal consequences, it 
would seem that the only method of saving life from ignition of clothing 
consists in wearing those articles only which have been steeped in this life- 
saving fluid. 


INTERESTING FACTS IN REGARD TO THE VALUE OF SEWING- 
MACHINES. 


In the recent contest before the Commissioner of Patents for the extension 
of Howe’s patent for sewing-machines, the following facts were proved in 
relation to the value of the patent, which, at first thought, are certainly 
astonishing. 

Ezra Baker states that the amount of the boot and shoe business of 
Massachusetts is $55,000,000 annually, and the ladies’ and misses’ gaiter 
boot and shoe business is at least one-half of the whole boot and shoe busi- 
ness in that state; and is, therefore, equal to $27,500,000. He also states 
that about one-eleventh of these $55,000,000 is paid for sewing labor. From 
this proportion it appears that the annual sewing labor upon ladies’ and 
misses’ gaiter boots and shoes is $2,500,000, and that it would cost four 
times as much if done by hand; so that the annual saving by this inven- 
tion in the manufacture of ladies’ and misses’ boots and shoes in one state 
is $7,590,000. The price of these shoes has been reduced to the consumer 
one-half by the introduction of sewing-machines—the price of material 
remaining the same. 

Oliver F. Winchester is a manufacturer of shirts at New Haven, Conn. 
He says that his factory turns out about eight hundred dozen per week; 
that he uses four hundred sewing-machines, and that a machine, with an 
attendant, will do the work of five hand-sewers at least, and do it better. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 81 


He pays, at least, $4 per week; but, reckoning it at $3, —the old price for 
sewing before machines were introduced, — it shows a saving, in this singie 
manufactory, of $240,000 a year. Allowing the males of the United States 
to wear out two shirts a year apiece, and a proportional saving would 
amount to $11,680,000 annually in making the single article of shirts. 

James W. Millar, connected with Brooks Brothers, of New York City, 
manufacturers of clothing, states that that house alone does a business of 
over $1,000,000 annually, and use twenty sewing-machines in the store, and 
patronize those that others use, and do about three-fourths of all their sew- 
ing by machines, and pay annually for sewing labor about $200,000; $75,000 
of this is saved by machines; that is, the machines save $75,000 on every 
$200,000 paid for sewing labor. And he states that the house of Brooks 
Brothers does not make one-hundredth part of the machine-made clothing 
manufactured in New York. This, putting the proportion at one-hundredth 
part, would make the business of manufacturing machine clothing in the 
city of New York $100,000,000 annually; and, at the rate that house pays for 
sewing, it brings the cost of sewing in this branch of manufacture in the 
city of New York —even with the assistance of the sewing-machines — 
up to $20,000,000. A saving of $75,000 on every $200,000 of this makes 
$7,500,000. James McCall states an estimate of what proportion of the 
clothing business of the United States is done in the city of New York, 
and puts it at about one-tenth. Multiplying the cost of sewing in that 
business alone in New York, as shown above, by ten, it carries the extent 
of cost in the United States to $200,000,000 per annum; and assuming 
that as large a portion of this is done by machines in other places as is done 
in the city of New York, it makes the cost of sewing labor in this particular 
manufacture in the United States the above sum of $200,000,000; and this, 
too, by the assistance of machine sewing. $75,000 on every $200,000 of 
this is saving, which makes the saving in the United States amount to 
$75,000,000 annually in this branch alone. — Scientific American. 


MAGIC RUFFLES. 


Ruffles haye been worn from time immemorial; but ‘‘ Magic Ruffles,” or 
ruffles made by magic, are a modern invention. The old lady in her frilled 
cap, two generations ago, could hardly have believed that her granddaugh- 
ter would, by the assistance of mechanism and steam, be enabled to make 
rufiles at the rate of two yards a minute, and of more perfect workmanship 
than it is possible to produce by hand. 

Two inventors, of New York city, have recently devised an attachment to the 
sewing-machine, for the manufacture of ruffles, which bids fair to prove more 
valuable than any other of the four hundred patented improvements on the 
original invention. 

Through the combined genius of these hundreds of patentees, the sewing- 
machine had gradually approached perfection, until the variety of work to 
which it was adapted had nearly equalled that of the needle and thimble of 
the seamstress. Stitching, hemming, and cording were done with great ra- 
pidity, and even gathering was considerably expedited by its use; but in 
making ruffles, puffs, and many other kinds of gathered fabrics, the ordi- 
nary process, even with a sewing-machine, is a slow and tedious one, requiring 
much manipulation and great care. This last invention, however, renders 
the process as simple and rapid as plain sewing. It has not yet been applied 


82 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to family machines, but has been used by the proprietors for several months 
past in the manufacture of a new kind of ruffles for the market, which are 
applied to a great variety of uses. 

Except in its perfection and the uniformity of its gathers, the Magic Ruffle 
very nearly resembles the old article worn by our grandmothers; but on 
close inspection it is found to contain no gathering-thread, the gathers being 
confined by the same line of machine-stitching that holds it to the strip of 
cloth to which it is attached. 

The patent for this machine was granted in May, 1860, since which time 
the manufacturing of the new ruffles has developed into a gigantic business ; 
one company in New York turning out from ten to fifteen thousand yards of 
ruffling daily, while the orders for the goods are constantly in advance of 
the production. — New York Tribune. 


PRINTING FABRICS IN IMITATION OF EMBROIDERY. 


M. Perrot, France, has recently discovered a novel mode of ornamenting 
fabrics, by the printing process, so as to produce an effect similar to embroi- 
dery. This process consists simply in printing, by the aid of rollers, any 
desired pattern upon a fabric, in a solution of gutta-percha, previously 
bleached by the aid of chlorine, and dissolved by any of the well-known 
solvents. The fabric so printed is then passed through a box or casing con- 
taining woollen, cotton, silk, or other fine flock or colored powder, which 
adheres only to those parts impressed with the solution, and forms beauti- 
fully raised patterns and devices, having a fine, soft, and velvety surface. 


CHINESE EMBROIDERY. 


Probably the finest modern examples of pure embroidery in silk, unmixed 
with gold and silver thread, pearls, or precious stones, are executed by the 
Chinese. Not only in execution, but in design and the fitness of the forms 
of the ornament to the material and purpose, the embroideries of the Chi- 
nese generally exhibit a great superiority to the usual examples of European 
skill. The extreme care taken with the work, especially in the more costly 
specimens, renders them very instructive examples of textile decoration. 
From seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty stitches may be counted in 
the space of a square inch. Some years ago I took the trouble to dissect 
some of the best examples I could meet with, and the more closely they 
were examined the more marvellous the work appeared. — Mr. Wallis, Jour- 
nal of Society of Arts, London. 


NEW METHOD OF EMBOSSING WOOD. 


At a recent meeting of the Franklin Institute, Mr. Wood exhibited some 
specimens of wood embossed by his patent process. The wood is soaked 
in water, and then subjected to pressure under a metal matrix heated suffi- 
ciently to burn away the superfluous material. The wood is not finished at 
one operation, the matrix being removed several times in order to brush off 
the charred wood. The specimens possess more softness than is usual in 
wood carvings; and when varnished have a beautiful appearance. The 
design is first modelled in clay or wax, and a plaster cast taken from it; 
this serves as a pattern from which the matrix is moulded. The saturation 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 85 


by water prevents the burning or charring of the material not immediately 
in contact with the metal. 


ARTIFICIAL WOOD. 


In a recent lecture at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, M. Payen called 
the attention of his hearers to the process of making a kind of ebony, or 
artificial wood, very hard, very heavy, and capable of receiving a very high 
polish and a brilliant varnish. M. Ladry, the inventor of this process, takes 
very fine sawdust, mixes it with blood from the slaughter-houses, and sub- 
thits the resulting paste to a very heavy pressure obtained by the hydrau- 
lic press. If the paste has been enclosed in moulds it will take the form 
of the mould, and resembles pieces of ebony carved by a skilful hand. 

Another curious application of this paste consists in the formation of 
brushes. The bristles are arranged in the paste while yet soft; the paste is 
covered by a plate pierced with holes, through which the bristles pass; the 
pressure is then applied, and brushes are obtained, made of a single piece, 
cheaper and more lasting than the usual kind. This artificial wood of M. 
Ladry is much heavier than common woods. — Cosmos. 


WHY THE SHOE PINCHES. 


A pamphlet has lately appeared of peculiar interest to that vast multitude 
of our population who are the victims either of corns or of expensive corn 
doctors, and who suffer, as some poet has suggested, from a style of bunion 
which is not altogether conducive to “ Pilgrims’ Progress.” It is translated 
from the German by a young Edinburgh physician, and published with the 
following title: ‘‘ Why the Shoe Pinches; a Contribution to Applied Anat- 
omy. By Hermann Meyer, M. D., Professor of Anatomy in the University 
of Zurich. Translated from the German by John Stirling Craig. Edinburgh: 
Edmonston and Douglas.” 

Dr. Meyer, the author, is pronounced one of the highest continental au- 
thorities on Physiological Anatomy, who has published an important gen- 
eral text on that science, as well as several treatises on the structure of the 
foot and knee. In the discussion now under consideration he has already 
been preceded by Peter Camper, who, in the last century, wrote a paper 
“On the Best Shoe,” and who zealously but ineffectually urged that the 
foot-gear of man was quite as important a topic as the shoeing of horses, to 
which so much attention is given. 

Against the prevailing pattern, Dr. Meyer, in his capacity of anatomist, 
utters an earnest protest. The cut of a shoe, says the Doctor, is not,as the 
cut of a coat, a matter of indifference. ‘‘ When Fashion prescribes an ar- 
bitrary form of shoe, she goes,” he asserts, ‘‘far beyond her province, and, 
in reality, arrogates to herself the right of determining the shape of the 
foot.” 

In his opinion the shoemaker ought not only to produce a shoe that does 
not pinch, but a shoe so constructed that it will give to a foot distorted by 
the pinching it has borne already, a fair chance of a return to its right shape, 
and full possession of its power as a means of carrying the body onward. 
He tells us that, in measuring a foot for a shoe or boot, the first thing to be 
considered is the place of the great toe. Upon this toe, in walking, the 
weight of the whole body turns at every step; in the natural foot, therefore, 


84 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


it is in a straight line with the heel. A central straight line drawn from the 
point of the great toe to the middle of its root, if continued, would pass 
very exactly to the middle of the heel. By the misfitting boot commonly 
worn, the point of the toe is pressed inwards, the root outwards. 

The practice adopted by many of having a last made of the exact size and 
model of the foot, is condemned by Dr. Meyer, if the foot has been pre- 
viously injured in consequence of wearing ill-fitting boots or shoes. If a 
cast be made of a distorted foot, and a boot fitted to that, it is bad, because 
thereby the distortion is confirmed. It would be much the better, therefore, 
says the Doctor, so to form the boot that the conditions of healthy walking 
are allowed for, and the bones, at least to some extent, can gradually right 
themselves. Toa foot shortened by distortion he would fit a shoe adapted 
to its healthy size. But of a pair of boots made so as to content the eye of 
an anatomist, who knows what work is done by every bone, the main char- 
acteristic is, that when they stand side by side, with their heels in contact, 
the inner margins of the front part of the soles are along the whole edge 
corresponding to the sidesof the great toes, also in contact. If it be desira- 
ble to point the toes, they must be pointed only from the outer side, after the 
place of greatest breadth in the foot has been properly respected. <A certain 
sense of a turn inward belongs to the shape of boots so made, but if they 
fit perfectly they will insure to the foot the utmost ease and power; and, as 
their shape is of the ordinance of nature, they are no doubt really as elegant 
as those of which the pattern is a bootmaker’s invention. 

Dr. Meyer says that two or three persons in Zurich have had their boots 
made on these principles without exciting special remark — so immediately 
is the propriety of the change admitted even by the arbiters of fashion. As 
an evidence of its utility, a London journal mentions the fact that marching 
soldiers, who often break down in consequence of their shoes, would be 
rendered vastly more efficient if they were made in accordance with the 
structure of their feet. 


ATMOSPHERIC WASHING-MACHINE. 


At the last meeting of the British Association, Mr. J. Fisher called atten- 
tion to a new washing-machine, the action of which was derived from 
streams of air forced through water from below, —the most effectual tem- 
perature of the water used being about 140° Fahrenheit. It was stated that 
machines on this principle, driven by steam power, had been for some time 
in successful use, in manufactories in England, for cleansing soiled laces. 


IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STARCH. 


A patent has recently been issued in England for submitting starch — . 
after it is deposited in the manufacturing process — to the action of a hydraulic 
press, in suitable boxes, so as to press all the water out, instead of evaporat- 
ing all the moisture in artificially heated rooms, according to the usual prac- 
tice. A great saving in fuel is thus effected by well-known and very simple 
means. 


NEWSPAPER ADDRESSING MACHINE. 
The following is a description of a newspaper addressing machine, in- 


vented by R. & D. Davis, of Elmira, N. Y., and recently introduced practi- 
cally in several of the large newspaper offices of New York. The machin- 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 85 


ery consists essentially of two distinct parts, one lettering the type or blocks 
with which the impressions are made, and the other doing the printing. 
The lettering machine consists of a disk, or wheel, about eight inches in 
diameter, on the periphery of which are tirmly-attached dies, representing’ 
the letters of the alphabet. By revolving this wheel or disk on its axis a die 
representing any desired letter is brought in position, and stamps its impress 
on asmall block, when another letter is brought in position, and so on until 
the entire address is stamped, whicn is accomplished in about the same time 
required by a compositor to set the same number of types in a stick. A 
large number of these biocks, having been impressed with the addresses, 
are readily attached to a band, thus forming an endless belt of blocks. 
These belts are systematically arranged in boxes, so that any address may 
be referred to ina moment, for change or other purpose. When used, a 
belt is taken from the box and placed on the printing-machine ready for 
operation in a few seconds, when the impressions are made by a slight pres- 
sure with the foot, as rapidiy as the papers or wrappers can be removed from 
the press. The entire apparatus is operated by hand, is simple, compact, 
cheap, requires no skill to work it, and is not liable to get out of repair, 
which renders it well adapted to papers of small as well as large circulation. 


MEASURING FAUCET. 


Whitman’s measuring and registering faucet is simply a force-pump with 
a solid piston operated by a lever or crank. The cylinder is of the capacity 
of the unit of measure (pint, quart, etc.), and at each discharge an index on 
a dial-plate moves forward one degree. Mr. Whitman thinks this invention 
will supersede the use of funnels in grocery stores, abate the nuisance of flies 
abcut molasses casks, and detect frauds in the capacity of barrels. The 
faucet, made of cast iron, and capable of measuring quarts, is sold for four 
dollars. 


NEW GRINDING AND POLISHING APPARATUS. 


The New York Belting Company are now introducing a new form of 
emery wheel, which bids fair to supersede entirely the ordinary mode of 
covering a wheel with glue and sprinkling emery upon it. The emery is 
incorporated with India-rubber and sulphur, and while in a plastic state is 
put into moulds, and submitted, under great pressure, to a high degree of 
heat, according to Goodyear’s patent for vulcanizing; this converts it into 
a solid granular mass, resembling granite or iron. It can be made of any 
desired grade of emery, and used either dry or with oil or water. The 
wheels can be turned off in a lathe, running very slow, in the same manner 
as iron is turned, which will enable parties using them to turn the face of 
the wheel to conform to work of any irregular shape, or to “true” them if 
necessary. 


NEW MODE OF JOINING PIPES. 


Mr. Siemens has exhibited at the London Institution of Civil Engineers a 
machine of his invention, manufactured by Messrs. Guest and Chrimes, for 
joining lead and other pipes by pressure only. The machine consisted of 
a strap of wrought iron, in the shape of the letter V, and of three dies, two 
of which were free to slide upon the inclined planes, while the third was 

8 


86 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pressed down upon them by means of a screw passing through a movable 
cross-head, embracing the sides of the open strap. The pipes to be joinea 
were placed end to end, and a collar of lead was slipped over them. The 
collar was then placed between the three dies, and the pressure was applied 
by means of a screw-key until the annular beads, or rings, projecting from the 
internal surface of the dies, were imbedded into the lead collar. The ma- 
chine was then removed, and a joint was formed capable of resisting a 
hydraulic pressure of eleven hundred feet. The security of the joint was 
increased by coating the surfaces previously to their being joined with white 
or red lead. The advantages claimed for this method of joining lead or 
other pipes, over the ordinary plumber’s joint, were the comparative facility 
and cheapness of execution, as the cost of a joint of this description was 
said to be only about one-third or one-fourth that of the plumber’s joint. A 
machine of a similar description was also used for joining telegraphic line 
wires, a specimen of which was likewise exhibited by Mr. Siemens. 


BITUMENIZED PAPER PIPES. 


The ingenious idea of hardening paper by means of an admixture of 
bitumen under the influence of hydraulic pressure, so as to convert it into a 
substitute for iron, is due to M. Jalourean, of Paris. The world has already 
become familiar with the utility and value of papier maché as a substitute 
for stone or marble in moulding, architectural castings, etc. It has also 
heard that the Chinese construct their cannon of prepared paper, lined 
with copper, and that they even make paper pipes; that an eccentric char- 
acter has built himself a house of paper, and that our American friends have 
invented a veritable paper brick; but nothing, it is believed, has lately come 
before the British public, in the way of paper, so curious, and yet practica- 
ble, as these bituminous paper pipes. Testing experiments, conducted at 
the Houses of Parliament, are reported to have “ proved that the material, 
while it possessed all the tenacity of iron, with one-half its specific gravity, 
had double the strength of stoneware tubes, without, moreover, being liable 
to breakage, as in the case of other material, and which frequently causes a 
loss to the contractor of some twenty or twenty-five per cent. on the sup- 
ply.” In order to test their strength, two of these bituminous paper pipes, 
of five-inch bore and half an inch thick, were subjected to hydraulic power, 
and they are said to have sustained, without breaking or bursting, a pressure 
of two hundred and twenty pounds to the square inch, or equivalent to five 
hundred and six feet head of water. The cost of the pipes is understood to 
be about one-half the cost of iron. — London Builder. 


GAS METERS. 


We make the following extract from the annual report of John C. Cres- 
son, the engineer of the Philadelphia Gas Works: 

Among the many subjects of a practical character that engage the atten- 
tion of the gas engineer, none has given rise to more solicitude than the 
choice and management of gas meters, upon the accuracy and unvarying 
action of which the interests of both consumer and producer are in a great 
degree dependent; the former for his fair and uninterrupted supply of the 
commodity he pays for, and the latter for securing the due returns for his 
outlay of material and labor. All these desirable results are obtained in 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 87 


great perfection from the instrument ordinarily known as the wet meter, so 
long as it is duly protected from frost and evaporative heat. Various con- 
trivances have been suggested and tried for securing the instrument from 
these injurious influences. The most general practice is the substitution, in 
part or in whole, of alcohol for water as the hydraulic seal; but, while this 
guards against freezing, it gives rise to much inconvenience by reason of its 
rapid evaporation and want of specific gravity, which oftentimes cause a 
sudden obstruction of the flow of gas at the moment when the stoppage is 
most inconvenient to the consumer. A liquid free from these objections has 
- long been desired, and, after numerous experiments, I had reason to suppose 
Thad discovered it in the solution of neutral chloride of calcium. Accord- 
ingly, in the year 1843, I introduced this liquid into several hundred meters, 
for the purpose of giving it a fair practical test. It did not freeze at the 
lowest natural temperature of our climate, and the strong affinity of the 
salt for water prevented rapid evaporation; while its specific gravity, being 
greater than that of water, gave full support to the valve-fioat, and effective- 
ness to the hydraulic sealing. The results of the first year of trial were 
entirely satisfactory, and the liquid was then used in all the exposed meters 
with equally good results. But the expectations raised by two years of trial 
were dissipated at the end of the third year; by which time the metals of 
the meter showed such unmistakable evidences of the destructive action of 
the solution as led to its abandonment. 

More recently I have been giving trial to another liquid, with encouraging 
prospect of success. It is the inert substance obtained from fatty bodies, 
and known by the name of glycerine. It is capable of resisting our low- 
est natural temperature, maintains its fluidity very pertinaciously, and is 
considerably heavier than water. Should it manifest no injurious action on 
the meter metals, or other defects, it will completely meet the wants of the 
instrument. A more direct method of escaping these liquid imperfections 
has been attempted in the so-called dry meter, working on the principle of 
the ordinary bellows, with diaphragms connected by flexible joints. A trial 
of these, on a large scale, during the years 1847 and 1848, revealed imper- 
fections which impaired their trustworthiness so greatly as to require their 
entire disuse. Within a few years sundry improvements have been made in 
the construction of the dry meter, intended to remove the imperfections be- 
fore mentioned, which seem to have sufficient merit to justify another trial. 
This has been in progress for nearly three years, with results, thus far, quite 
favorable; and if these shall be confirmed by longer and more extensive 
trial, the annoyances that have so long attended this part of gas machinery 
may be happily terminated. 


COAL-OIL. 


Although the manufacture of gas is rapidly extending in every direction, 
and the fact is becoming more widely known that in any town containing 
more than one thousand inhabitants a gas company can with profit be sus- 
tained, still, at present the number of gas works in operation in this country 
does not exceed four hundred, and consequently a large demand exists 
for other means of illumination. Coal-oil from its inexpensiveness, safety, 
and high photometric value, occupies an important place among the illu- 
minating agents at present in use, and has given rise to an extensive trade, 
which cannot fail to be much increased, though at present it is somewhat 
cepressed. 


“ 


88 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Extensive manufactories of coal-oil are now in operation at New York, 
Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, and many 
other places. The production will doubtless continue to augment, as the 
demand for prime qualities now exceeds the supply. It is to be regretted 
that much of the oil produced in this country is impure, containing a super- 
abundance of the heavier hydro-carbons, which, except they are removed, 
produce smoke and fill the apartment with unpleasant odors. The remedy 
for these evils will be applied, and re-distillation, or some less wasteful and 
more efficient process of purification, will be adopted, as competition is 
excited and the manufacture progresses. 

Of coal-oil lamps and burners, about 150,000 dozen are estimated to be in 
use, each lamp consuming about four gallons of oi] during the year. The 
amount of oil burnt averages consequently 7,200,000 gallons a year, or about 
20,000 gallons every day. To make 22,750 gallons of burning oil requires 
75,000 gallons of crude coal-oil, or a consumption of 60,000 bushels of cannel 
coal. The erection of crude oil and refining works to make this quantity of 
oil each day will cost $3,000,000; but the actual outlay for the oil-works at 
present in operation does not fall short of $8,000,000. The value of chemi- 
cals used in the purification of coal-oil will amount to over $2,000 per day. 
The number of barrels used to hold coal-oil will be between 500 and 600, 
representing the value of $1,000 and the labor of 400 men. The aggregate 
value of the coal-oil itself will amount to $16,000 per day, or more than 
$5,000,000 a year. This, foo, does not include heavy oil and paraffine, the 
sale of which is limited and uncertain. The number of workmen employed 
in the several coal-oil works in this country will reach 2,000; that of the 
miners engaged in mining cannel, 700 more. Besides these, a large force of 
men is employed in making lamps, burners, wicks, chemicals, etc. — Gas 
Light Journal. 


THE AMERICAN SCREW CLOCK. 


Large sums are annually paid in this country for fancy clocks imported 
from France and Germany, the value of which commonly consists more in 
their cases and tinsel work than in the excellence of their machinery and the 
accuracy of their movements. The cheap clocks of Connecticut manufac- 
ture, the wheels of which are cut out by dies, are quite as good time-keepers 
as most of the foreign clocks, and take their place in this country, and to 
some extent in Europe also, where correct time-keeping at least possible cost 
is alone desired. In these, and in watches made aiso on the same principle 
of multiplying the parts by machinery, so that the pieces may be put toge- 
ther indiscriminately, the American manufacture has of late years made 
great progress, lessening the foreign importations, and greatly increasing 
the use of these valuable instruments. But in ornamental clocks we are still 
dependent upon European manufacturers. 

We therefore welcome the introduction of a beautiful ornamental clock, 
upon an entirely new principle, of great simplicity of design, and so con- 
structed as to possess the accuracy of movement of a chronometer watch. 
Its works, however, are fully exposed to view under the glass that incloses . 
them, and a better opportunity is thus afforded of learning the principles 
upon which this useful machine is constructed than from any other clock 
in use. 

The clock to which we refer is a recent invention of Mr. James Tuerlynx, 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 89 


of New York City. Its chief peculiarity consists in its motive power. Upon 
the circular metallic plate which forms the base of the clock is firmly fixed 
an upright steel screw, standing from ten to fifteen inches in height. A 
metallic ball of about two pounds weight is penetrated through its centre by 
this screw, and when at the upper end tends to run down the spiral inclined 
plane by revolving around it. By an ingenious arrangement, it is made to 
roll upon a little wheel attached to the top of the weight, without itself 
touching the screw; the friction is thus reduced to the least possible amount; 
and as by raising the weight this little wheel starts back and again catches 
in the thread of the screw at whatever point the weight is lifted, the only 
winding up required is simply to raise the weight, and for this a rod is pro- 
vided, the upper end of which terminates in a ring or knob outside the clock, 
and the lower end in a circle, which takes the base of the weight as the rod 
is lifted. The revolution of the ball is communicated to the main wheel, 
which lies horizontally upon the bottom of the plate, by means of two rods 
that pass through the ball and are fixed to this wheel. <A horizontal bar 
connects their upper ends, and the middle point of this bar is supported and 
turns upon the top of the screw. On this centre is the wheel, attached to 
the upper surface of the cross-bar, which regulates the movement of the 
hands upon the dial. The main wheel at the base is connected immediately 
with the escapement and balance-wheel, by which its motion is checked, and 
let out tick by tick with each swing of the balance. In these clocks the 
balance is on the compensation principle. The regulation is like that of a 
watch, and is reached by a wire introduced, when required, through a little 
hole made in the glass for this purpose. From the perfection of the works, 
and the holes being jeweled, the clock runs at regular rates, and as a time- 
keeper is probably not surpassed by any other of the same cost. The works 
are perfectly protected from dust, and the hands are covered by a glass like 
that of a watch, or, when inclosed, as in some of the clocks, under the glass 
cylinder, they may be reached through a hole made opposite to them in the 
glass, by a long key constructed for this purpose. 

The important points in this clock are: first, the uniform manner of action 
of the motive power; second, its direct action upon the main wheel without 
the intervention of toothed wheels, which in other clocks introduce addi- 
tional friction and causes of irregularity. The motive power required is thus 
lessened, and the wear proportionably reduced. It is variously constructed 
with one to three dials, and to run thirty-six hours, fifty hours, or eight days: 
For family use, no inconvenience is experienced in the use of those which 
run only thirty-six hours, as the position of the weight is at all times seen, 
and whenever at a low point is readily lifted by any member of the family. 
—N. Y. Tribune. 


RECOVERY OF SILVER FROM SILVER-PLATED UTENSILS. 


An important problem was that of readily obtaining pure silver from old, 
worn-out plated utensils of copper, ete. A recent number of the Moniteur 
Scientifique publishes valuable information on the subject, by M. Soelzel. 
The best method consists of treating the plated work by sulphuric acid, in 
which from five to ten per cent of nitrate of soda has been dissolved. The 
silver disappears, as if by magic, in this solution, before any of the copper is 
at all acted upon. 

S* 


90 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


APPLICATION OF POISON TO THE CAPTURE OF WHALES. 


Professor Christison, of Edinburgh, has recently published an account of 
some remarkable experiments for the capture of whales by poison. The 
agency employed was hydrocyanic, or prussic acid, inserted in glass tubes, 
and in weight about two ounces. After various trials to overcome the diffi- 
culty of discharging the noison from the tubes, a mode was arranged of 
attaching one end of a strong copper wire to each side of the harpoon near 
the blade, the other end of which passed obliquely over the tube, then through 
an oblique hoje in the shaft, and finally to a bight in the rope, where it was 
firmly secured. When the harpoon struck the whale the tubes were crushed. 
On one occasion, a fine whale was met with; the harpoon was skilfully and 
deeply buried in its body; the leviathan immediately sounded, or dived per- 
pendicularly downwards, but in a short time the rope relaxed, and the whale 
rose to the surface quite dead. The crew, however, were so appalled by the 
terrific effect of the poisoned harpoon that they declined to use any more of 
them; but Professor Christison is confident, from subsequent experiments, 
that success will be fully attained in this mode of capture. 


NEW FIRE ALARUM. 


An instrument has just been introduced, by Messrs. Taylor and Grimshaw, 
of London, which promises to be of great value as a fire alarm in ware- 
houses, docks, vessels, and public establishments generally, as well as in 
private houses. It consists simply of an air-tight cylinder, with an India- 
rubber top, which, in proportion as the confined air becomes heated, ex- 
pands and presses a spring, which, at any given elevation of temperature, 
will set free a common alarum, or fire a pistol or cannon. It is likewise 
capable of being adapted to furnaces, conservatories, and every place where 
exact ventilation is requisite, since the spring, instead of sounding an 
alarum, can be made to act upon an aperture for admitting air. It is port- 
able and inexpensive, and the principle seems likely to be applied to a 
number of important commercial uses. 


A NEW FORM OF BATH. 


M. Mathieu (de la Drome), a well-known French orator, has lately been 
turning his attention to the subject of medicinal baths. A bath by immer- 
sion requires from two to three hectolitres of water, which in the case of 
mere river or spring water is of no consequence as regards expense. But 
the case is far different when the water is to be impregnated with medicinal 
substances, some of which are very costly; or when mineral waters are 
prescribed, which cannot be had in large quantities without considerable 
outlay, except at the spring from which they are derived. M. Mathieu (de 
la Dréme) has therefore endeavored to ascertain, both by calculation and 
experiment, what is the real quantity of water which produces a usefal ef- 
fect on a human body in a common bath, and has found that it cannot be 
more than three or four litres in the course of an hour. To distribute this 
quantity both equally and economically on the body was, therefore, the 
question to be solved: and he has accordingly invented an apparatus, which 
he calls bain hydrofére. The patient is seated ina kind of box like that 
used for fumigation, while a powerful ventilator outside transforms the 


a 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 91 


water which is to be used into a minute aqueous dust or dew, just as we see 
a high wind do with the water issuing from the jets of a fountain. This 
dew is driven into the box through an aperture on alevel with the knees; and 
owing to the extreme minuteness of its particles, the latter ascend, and then 
gradually subside on the body. In ashort time these particles coalesce and 
trickle down the body, until at last the water descends in an unceasing 
stream. This system has now been tried with great success at the Hopital 
St. Louis, and is generally attracting the attention of medical men. 


LIQUID GLUE. , 


As long ago as 1852, Dumoulin published a notice in the Comptes Rendus 
of the French Academy with reference to the preparation of a liquid glue. 
He was led to the discovery of a method of procuring it by considering the 
long-known fact that when soiution of glue is frequently heated and cooled, 
or kept a long time exposed to heat, it loses its property of gelatinizing by 
cooling, and remains liquid. Under the impression that this change might 
be caused by the action of the oxygen of the air, and, if so, would be in- 
duced more speedily by some vigorous oxidizing agent, Dumoulin tried the 
effect of dilute nitric acid on glue, and shortly found that by its use the 
product he desired was easily obtained. His method of preparation was as fol- 
lows: The best Cologne glue is dissolved, at a gentle heat, in an equal weight 
of water contained in an enamelled or glazed vessel, and when the solution is 
complete, nitric acid of thirty-six degrees Beaumé is added in proportions, 
and at intervals, to the amount of one-fifth of the weight of the glue em- 
ployed. Nitrous vapors are abundantly.given off, and a glue is obtained 
that is perfectly fluid, and may be kept in open vessels for years without 
alteration. Already, in 1852, this preparation was sold in Paris as inalter- 
able liquid glue (colle liquide et inalterable). A better liquid glue than that 
just described is made with acetic acid. One pound of good glue is dis- 
solved, with heat, in a mixture composed of one pound of strong vinegar, 
one-quarter of a pound of alcohol, and avery little alum. According to 
Cavallius, however, alum destroys the tenacity of glue, and should be 
avoided. In order to make the glue white in color, a quantity of sulphate 
of lead is added to the solution. The liquid glues now so extensively sold 
in this country are made with acetic acid, and those we have tested are 
very excellent preparations. A glue that is liquid at low temperature is not 
so adhesive as one which requires gentle warming to make it flow. Solu- 
tions of chloride of barium, bichromate of potash, and some other salts, as 
weil as all the various mineral and vegetable acids, also have the property of 
holding glue in permanent solution. 


THE ART OF DENTISTRY. 


Few persons realize the rapid growth of dentistry as a profession. Forty 
years ago doctors officiated as tooth-pullers, and if decay seized upon a 
molar it accomplished its work unimpeded. It is an actual fact that in 1820 
there were hardly more than thirty practising dentists in this country. Ten 
years after that, the invention of artificial teeth had given such an impetus 
to the profession that the thirty had increased to 200. In 1842 it was esti- 
mated that there were 1,400; in 1848, 2,000. In 1850, the census reported 
2,923 practising dentists; and at the present time there must be at least 5,000. 


92 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


American ingenuity long since superseded the artificial teeth which were at 
first manufactured by the French. In twenty years the number of teeth 
made here has increased from 250,000 to 5,000,000. For all these grinders 
we cannot find occupation, and a large portion are exported. The capital 
employed in this single branch of industry is upwards of $500,000. A single 
firm in Philadelphia use 700 moulds, producing 9,000 different shapes and 
styles of teeth, costing upwards of $18,000. Of platina alone 300 ounces 
a month are used simply for pins to fasten the teeth in their places. This 
firm manufactures 180,000 finished teeth per month. The value of gold-foil 
it sells amounts to $109,200 per annum. It is estimated that the 5,000 den- 
tists in the country use no less than $2,500,000, worth of gold per annum. 


MEDALS IN ALLOYS OF PLATINUM AND IRIDIUM. 


M. Pelouze recently presented to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the 
name of M. Jacobi, medals of different sizes struck in alloys of platinum 
and iridium, fused at the laboratory of the Hcole Normale, by the process of 
MM. Deville and Debray. The alloys contained respectively twenty, ten, 
and five per cent of iridium. According to the declaration of M. Jacobi, 
they were rolled cold and without annealing, with great ease, and presented 
the characters of the most ductile metals. Under the press they take a 
polish equal to that of coins; and the alloys rich in iridium showed a 
hardness rather greater than that of gold of 0°916. This hardness is pro- 
portioned to the quantity of iridium, as is also the resistance of the alloy 
to aqua-regia, which attains its maximum when the quantity of iridium 
reaches twenty per cent. 


WEAR OF GOLD AND SILVER COINAGE. 


The Gazette of St. Petersburg gives a curious account of an experiment 
recently made at the mint of that city for the purpose of ascertaining the 
comparative loss by ordinary wear of gold and silver coin. It appears, con- 
trary to the generally received opinion, that gold wears away faster than 
silver. The means employed were as follows: Twenty pounds of gold half- 
imperials, and as much of silver copecks, — coins of about the same size, — 
were put into two new barrels, mounted like churns, which were kept turning 
for four hours continuously. It was then found, on weighing the coins, that 
the gold coins had lost sixty-four grammes, while the silver coins had lost 
only thirty-four grammes; but as the number of gold pieces was twenty- 
eight per cent. less than those of silver, the proportion is greater to that 
amount in favor of the latter. It must, however, be mentioned that the 
silver contained more alloy than the gold, the standard of the former being 
868-1000ths of pure metal, and that of the latter 916-1000ths. The result of 
the experiment is, that the pecuniary loss on the wear of gold coin is about 
_ thirty times more than on silver. 


STONE-DIGGING AND WALL-LAYING MACHINE. 


We were recently invited to witness, says the New York Tribune, the trial 
of a machine for digging stones and building wall. The novelty of a ma- 
chine for such labor excited a good deal of incredulity as to the possibility 
of substituting mechanical for manual labor in this hardest of farm work; 


4 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 93 


and it was difficult to believe the statement that it would take rocks of five 
tons’ weight out of the ground without digging around them. 

But seeing is believing; and we have witnessed the machine in actual 
operation, taking out boulders weighing from one to five tons, and from 
one-half to seven-eighths under ground, at the rate of one every three min- 
utes. The machine is a compact and stout iron windlass, on wheels, drawn 
by one pair of oxen, while another pair, immediately in front of them, are 
hitched to a rope which works the windlass through cog-wheels, multiply- 
ing the power some twenty times. The windlass can also be worked by 
hand, in which case the power is multiplied twice or three times as much. 
Two very heavy chains are fastened to and reeled upon the barrel of the 
windlass; they support a hook in whose jaw is hung a piece of chain, which 
can easily be lengthened or shortened. This chain is reeved through the 
shanks of the huge hooks which take hold of the rocks. The rocks are 
previously fitted for the machine by drilling holes in opposite sides, about 
three-quarters of an inch deep. The machine is driven over a rock; the 
man at the windlass — which is so high that a rock of five or six tons can be 
lifted two feet from the ground — lowers the great grappling hooks; the 
man below adjusts their points in the holes in the sides of the rocks, length- 
ening or shortening the chain holding the hooks as the rock is larger or 
smaller; the man at the windlass then tightens the slack, while the man 
below gets upon the machine; then both heave at the windlass. If they 
do not start the rock, the driver helps them, and if the three cannot, it is 
given up as liable to break the machine. If they do start it, they tell the 
driver to go ahead, and he drives on the forward team, winding up the 
windlass. The rock rises out of the ground, and the team yoked to the 
machine then draws it wherever it is wanted. It can be laid as the bottom 
stone of a wall, or, if the bottom stones are laid, the machine can be backed 
up to the wall, and the rock pulled over by the other pair of oxen, and laid 
on the wall. 

This all seems very simple and easy, and it is easier than it seems. The 
holes drilled in the rocks were so shallow that we were expecting all the 
while that the hooks would slip, or would break away the rock, when the 
enormous lifting power required to lift it and tear away the earth which 
wedged many of them down came to be applied. But they did not, and in 
some cases the hooks were applied even without drilling holes forthem. It 
is a wonder that, among all the inventive Yankees who have spent so many 
lifetimes digging out rocks with spades, and levers, and chains, and oxen, 
nobody should have thought of this before. Mr. 8. E. Bolles, of Plymouth, 
Mass., the inventor of the machine, got his patent for it five years ago; but 
it is only lately, and through an enterprising farmer, that it has been 
brought to the notice of the public. The machines appear to be very sol- 
idly built. They weigh a little over a ton, and cost, aside from the patent 
right to use them, two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Messrs. Knapp & 
Co. offer to take out all the rocks weighing between one and five tons, on 
any ordinary piece of ground in the counties for which they hold the patent 
right, at seventeen dollars per hundred. They say it costs three or four 
times as much to do it in the old way, and that many pieces of ground, 
which would not pay for clearing up in the old way, can now be smoothed 
off at a profit, 


* 


94 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


Corn-Cutter and Shocker.—J.H. Reble, of Dayton, Ohio, has recently 
brought inio operation a novel agricultural implement, in the shape of a 
corn-cutter and shocker. The machine is about eight feet wide, and drawn 
by two horses. It cuts the standing maize by means of vibrating knives 
like those of a mower, and throws it over backward on to a scoop-shaped 
platform, where the butts are properly arranged by an assistant, who stands 
behind the driver, and has a suitable long-handled hook for the purpose. 
The tops of the stalks lie in a pair of arms, and when enough have accumu- 
lated — say one hundred to one hundred and fifty hills — to make a shock, 
they are compressed by means of a rope and windlass; a binding-string is 
tied around them, and the shock is first raised upward and carried back- 
ward by a lever which raises a section of the platform, and then tilted up so 
as to be discharged on the ground right side up. The machine then drives 
on and repeats the same operation. It requires two horses to draw the 
shocker, and three men to work it. 

An improved Hook for a Whiffle-trec, from which the trace never can get 
loose, however slack it may be, when in use, while it is also as handy to hitch 
and unhitch as one of the ordinary kind, is a new and successful contriv- 
ance. This hook is attached to the whiffle-tree by an iron strap, plays loosely 
up and down, and turns quite round behind the whiffle-tree, where alone 
the trace can be hitched and unhitched. As soon as it slips from that 
position, the hook fits close to the iron at every other point, whether pulled 
tight or left slack. Naturally, when the trace is slack, the hook falls and 
hangs by its own gravity below the whiffle-tree, but it is almost, if not quite, 
impossible that it should turn round upon the rear side so as to unhook. 

An Improvement in the construction of a Corn-knife, or Tree-pruning Knife, 
consists in an iron attachment to the end of the handle, which is made to 
reach up along the under side of the arm nearly to the elbow, where it is 
loosely buckled. This gives all the strength and leverage of the forearm to 
relieve the strain upon the wrist. 

A new Churn, says the New York Tribune, has appeared, which, we believe, 
will give greater satisfaction than any of its almost innumerable predeces- 
sors. Heretofore we have found no substitute for the old hard-working but 
effective dasher churn; but one has, we think, at last been invented. This 
new churn will make more and better butter from a given quantity of 
cream than any other we have ever seen, and in a reasonable time, usually 
less than half an hour. Nor has it any machinery to adjust or keep in 
order, and nothing but a plain, smooth barrel, inside and out, to keep clean. 
A child can fill it, churn it, empty it, wash it, with less strength than it takes 
to lift a bucket of water. It has no dasher, but is simply a plain barrel, of 
any required size, hung upon iron pivots in a frame, and made to revolve 
end over end by a crank, the cream dashing back and forth. One end of 
the barrel is made movable and convenient to take off, and is fastened on 
by a thumb-screw, air tight. After the cream is put in and the cover fas- 
tened down, a small air-pump is attached, and the barrel charged with air, 
and then revolved. Without attempting a reason, we will say that this 
aerifying has a remarkable and beneficial effect upon the cream, and appar- 
ently improves the quantity and quality of the butter. 

Improved Horse Shoe. — A patent has recently been granted to W. Coleman, 


| 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 95 


of Philadelphia, for a device for relieving the feet of horses from the con- 
cussion to which they are liable in passing over pavements. It consists 
in combining with the shoe a layer of India-rubber and what is called 
hoof-plate, the rubber being placed between the shoe and the hoof- 
plate, and the hoof-plate attached to the foot. By this arrangement, 
while the rubber is removed from contact with the foot, and is so secured 
as to be permanent and durable, its elasticity is at the same time made 
available. 

New Ploughing Machine.— A novel ploughing machine has recently been 
patented by R. F. Hudson and H.G. Pomeroy, of New York City, which 
operates as follows: — 

We may suppose two cart-wheels with gearing upon the inner face of the 
spokes which drives three shafts hung in an oscillating frame, and lying 
back at the rear of the axle, by which three furrows, each a foot wide and 
a foot deep, are not only to be turned over, but thoroughly stirred up and 
pulverized; the operation being something like worming a screw through 
the soil, in so rapid a manner that it keeps the earth flying around in a 
circle, and that of the three diggers mixing through each other. 


ON THE DECAY AND PRESERVATION OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 


The following is an abstract of a recent lecture before the Royal Institu- 
tion of Great Britain, on the above subject, by Prof. Austed. 

He commenced by directing attention to the state of the stone in many of 
the principal buildings in England and on the Continent, illustrating the 
extreme irregularity with which various: materials, and even various sam- 
ples of the same material, resist the action of the weather, and fall into 
decay. He then described the chief building materials, explaining in each 
case the cause of decay. Commencing with a general remark, that all 
stones are rotten and weathered at the top of a quarry, or near an earthy 
surface, and that the action of the weather on them is in some measure 
thus indicated, he first alluded to granite. He stated its properties of hard- 
ness and great durability in ordinary cases, but remarked that when soda 
replaced potash in the felspar, the crystals of felspar were subject to the 
action of the weather, and that, from some cause little known, the silica 
base also occasionally failed. Still, the great practical objection to the use 
of granite is its cost. Passing next to the sandstones, he defined them, 
mentioning the chief varieties. He stated that the nature of decay in sand- 
stones was generally the failure of the cementing medium, which is some- 
times silicious, but more frequently calcareous, or clayey, or even oxide of 
iron. He pointed out as the causes of decay, the want of sufficient cohe- 
sion in the cementing medium, the nature of the cementing medium itself, 
and the effect of expansion and contraction of water absorbed by the stone. 
The limestones were next considered, and the principal varieties passed 
briefly under review. They are all freestones, — some are crystalline, others 
semi-crystalline, but most of them are earthy, or oolited and absorbent. 
They consist of particles of carbonate of lime, whether grains, as in the 
case of chalk, or accumulated lumps, like odlite or roe-stone, or fragments 
of shell; and these particles are cemented together by carbonate of lime. 
The stones are generally laminated, though the bedding is often extremely 
obscure. When exposed to the action of the air in towns, they absorb 
moisture and acid gases very readily, and the result is a gradual destruction 


96 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of the surface, and often a rapid removal of the particles beneath the sur- 
face, especially on the planes of bedding. When stones are not placed in a 
building as they were in the quarry, the surface peels off in natural films, 
and is more rapidly acted on than it need be; but not unfrequently, even 
when well placed, the surface gets hardened by exposure more rapidly than 
the substance of the stone, and a scaling still takes place. The more ex- 
posed parts, those subject to drip and constant damp, and the more deli- 
cately sculptured portions, are among the first to decay; and, owing proba- 
bly to. differences in the mode or rate of deposit of the mud of which the 
limestone was formed, or some partial change that has since taken place, 
there is great irregularity in the rate of decay. Magnesian limestones, or 
dolomites, when quite crystalline, behave like marble; but when, as is usual, 
only half crystalline, they are very apt to become reduced to powder in 
parts, and the decay thence proceeds with extreme rapidity. The professor 
next proceeded to consider the remedies for decay. He alluded to paint as 
at once unsightly and not permanently beneficial, and included the large 
class of preservatives that have been suggested, in which any animal or 
vegetable oil or fatty matter was contained, as equally valueless, either peel- 
ing off, or rotting in the stone, and leaving it soon exposed to ordinary 
decay. The mineral bitumens, he stated, had not been much tried, owing 
to their dark, unsightly color. What is required is some mineral prepara- 
tion. He then alluded to the water-glass, a soluble silicate of potash, origi- 
nally described by Dr. Fuchs, and applied to indurate stone by M. Kuhl- 
mann. He explained the principle of this process as depending on slow 
decomposition by exposure to the air, and stated that, as meanwhile the 
influences of the weather continued to act, the method could not be adopted 
with advantage in the open air in a damp climate, where preservation is 
chiefly required. The only plan that, as far as he was aware, met the 
requirements of the case, he stated to be that adopted by Mr. Ransome, 
according to which the absorbent surface, whether of stone or terra-cotta, 
was saturated with the diluted solution of soluble silicate of soda, and then 
treated with a solution of chloride of calcium. By the mutual action of 
these solutions, a double decomposition is induced, the silicie acid parting 
with its soda to the chlorine, producing chloride of sodium, or common 
salt, and combining with the lime to form silicate of lime. The salt being 
washed away, only the silicate of lime remains. The silicate of lime, thus 
thrown down, he next explained to be a salt, which was not only itself non- 
absorbent, and singularly powerful in resisting the action of ordinary at- 
mospheric influences, but as having the property of adhering readily to the 
surface of the minute particles of which stone was formed. He illustrated 
this by the case of mortar and concrete, which owe their adhesive properties 
to this habit of silicate of lime, which is the mineral formed by the mutual 
action of the cement on the substances in contact with it. .The stone hav- 
ing its particles thus coated with silicate of lime, and all the absorbent sur- 
face being thus protected, the result is an immediate and great hardening of 
the stone, so far within its substance as the solutions have been absorbed, 
and a complete immunity to that extent from the action of atmospheric 
influences. The stone does not necessarily become non-absorbent, though 
it can be made so; but it absorbs much less rapidly than before, and 
appears to resist decay much in the way that some of the best natural 
sandstones are known to do. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 97 


ZEIODELITE —A NEW MINERAL PASTE. . 


The London Chemical News describes, under the above name, a new kind 
of paste, discovered by Joseph Simon, which becomes as hard as stone, is 
unchangeable by the air, and, being proof against the action of acids, may 
replace lead and other substances for various uses. It is made by mixing 
together nineteen pounds of sulphur and forty-two pounds of pulverized 
stoneware and glass. The mixture is exposed to a gentle heat, which melts 
the sulphur, and then the mass is stirred until it becomes thoroughly homo- 
geneous, when it is run into suitable moulds and allowed to cool. This pre- 
paration is proof against acids in general, whatever their degree of concen- 
tration, and will last an indefinite time. It melts at about 120° Centigrade, 
and may be reémployed without loss of any of its qualities, whenever it is 
desirable to change the form of an apparatus, by melting at a gentle heat, 
and operating as with asphalte. At 110° Centigrade it becomes as hard as 
stone, and therefore preserves its solidity in boiling water. Slabs of zeiode- 
lite may be joined by introducing between them some of the paste heated to 
200° Centigrade, which will melt the edges of the slabs, and when the whole 
becomes cold it will present one uniform piece. Chambers lined with zeio- 
delite in place of lead, the inventor says, will enable manufacturers to pro- 
duce acids free from nitrate and sulphate of lead. The cost will be only one- 
fifth the price of lead. The compound is also said to be superior to hydraulic 
lime for uniting stone and resisting the action of water. 


PLASTIC COMPOSITIONS IN LIEU OF MARBLE. 


A Mr. Brooman, of London, has invented a composition, to be used for 
building and decorating purposes in lieu of marble, which he calls “ simili- 
marble.” A communication in the London Engineer describes the process 
of manufacture as follows :— 

To manufacture similimarble intended to remain white, take sulphate 
of potass about fourteen ounces; river water, sixteen quarts; gum arabic, 
two pounds; purified cement, twenty pounds; marble or alabaster powder 
or dust, twenty pounds; and treat as follows: First mixture — Dissolve 
over a slow fire, stirring all the time, fourteen ounces of sulphate of potass 
in sixteen quarts of water; after fusion, dissolve two pounds of gum arabic. 
Second mixture — Stir together twenty pounds of purified cement, twenty 
pounds of marble or alabaster dust, and five pounds of lime, slacked suffi- ~ 
ciently to cause it to crumble into powder. Pour into a mortar of marble, 
porcelain, or other suitable material, a part of the first and a part of the 
second mixture, and stir with a wooden or bone spatula until the ingredients 
assume the state of thick paste; then beat with a pestle until the mass 
becomes elastic, which will be ascertained by the composition not adhering 
to the pestle. To make mouldings or castings, grease the mould, and apply 
a first layer of about one-third of an inch in thickness of the composition 
as aforesaid; this first layer is backed by another, formed by boiling, for 
about three or four hours over a brisk fire, hemp, tow, or other filamentous 
substances, cut small, in the “ first mixture”’ of gum and sulphate of potass. 
The product is mixed with the “second mixture” in a mortar, and well beaten 
with a pestle until the filamentous parts are divided through the mass, and 
the whole reduced to a paste. Thus a composition of great solidity and im- 
permeability is produced, lighter than and taking an equal polish to marble, 
and resisting the action of frost better than marble. 

9 


98 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


FIRE-PROOF COMPOSITION TO RESIST FIRE FOR FIVE HOURS. 


Dissolve, in cold water, as much pearlash as it is capable of holding in 
solution, and wash or daub with it all the boards, wainscoting, timber, ete. 
Then, diluting the same liquid with a little water, add to it such a portion of 
fine yellow clay as will make the mixture the same consistence as common 
paint; stir in a small quantity of paper-hanger’s flour paste to combine both 
the other substances. Give three coats of this mixture. When dry, apply 
the following mixture: Put into a pot equal quantities of finely pulverized 
iron filings, brickdust, and ashes; pour over them size or glue water; set the 
whole near a fire, and when warm stir them well together. With this liqhid 
composition, or size, give one coat; and on its getting dry, give it a second 
coat. Itresists fire for five hours, and prevents the wood from ever bursting 
into flames. It resists the ravages of fire, so as only to be reduced to coals 
or embers, without spreading the conflagration by additional flames; by which 
five clear hours are gained in removing valuable effects to a place of safety, 
as well as rescuing the lives of all the family from danger. Furniture, chairs, 
tables, ete., particularly staircases, may be so protected. Twenty pounds of 
finely sifted yellow clay, a pound and a half of flour for making the paste, 
and one pound of pearlash, are sufficient to prepare a square rood of deal 
boards. — London Builder. 


EXCLUSION OF DAMP FROM BRICKWORK. 


The following methods for obviating this evil have been described at the 
Royal Institute of Architects: Three quarters of a pound of mottled soap 
are to be dissolved in one gallon of boiling water, and the hot solution spread 
steadily with a flat brush over the outer surface of the brickwork, taking 
care that it does not lather; this is to be allowed to dry for twenty-four hours, 
when a solution formed of a quarter of a pound of alum dissolved in two gai- 
lons of water is to be applied in a similar manner over the coating of soap. 
The operation should be performed in dry, settled weather. The soap and 
alum naturally decompose each other, and form an insoluble varnish which 
the rain is unable to penetrate; and this cause of dampness is thus said to 
be effectually removed. The other method consists of sulphurized oil as a 
varnish or paint, and is said to improve the color of brick and stone, as well 
as preserve them. It is prepared by subjecting eight parts of linseed oil and 
one part of sulphur to a temperature of 278° in an iron vessel. It is said to 
keep out both air and moisture, and prevent deposits of soot and dirt, when 
applied with a brush to the surface of a building of brick or stone, or even 
of woodwork. — London Builder. 


ON THE USE OF GRANITE.—BY GARDNER WILKINSON. 


As the question of using granite for building and monumental purposes 
has been much discussed, I would call attention to a fact, which shows at 
how early a period the ancient Egyptians had watched the effect of atmos- 
pheric and other influences on stone, and how wisely they had profited by 
the lessons taught them by experience. They had learned that earth 
abounding in nitre, from its attracting moisture, had the effect of decom- 
posing granite, but that in the dry climate of Upper Egypt the stone 
remained for ages uninjured when raised above all contact with the ground. 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 99 


When, therefore, there was a possibility of its being exposed to damp, they 
based an obelisk, or other granite monument, on limestone substructions; 
and these last are found to the present day perfectly preserved, while the 
granite above them gives signs of decay in proportion toits contact with the 
earth subsequently accumulated about it. Iam speaking of Upper Egypt, 
visited only four or five times in a year by ashower of rain; for in the 
Delta granite remains have been affected in a far greater degree than in the 
Thebaid. Nitre abounds there, and it is remarkable that the obelisks at 
Alexandria have suffered least on the sides next the sea. 

The Egyptians seldom used granite as a building-stone, except for a small 
sanctuary in some sandstone temple; and in the later times of the Ptolemies 
one or two temples were built entirely of granite. But in the pure Egyptian 
period, that stone was chiefly confined to the external and internal casing of 
walls, to obelisks, doorways, monolithic shrines, sarcophagi, statues, small 
columns, and monuments of limited size, and was sometimes employed for 
roofing a chamber in a tomb. 

The durability of granite varies according to its qualities. The felspar is 
the first of its component parts which decomposes, and its greater or less 
aptitude for decay depends on the nature of the base of which the felspar 
consists. Egypt produces a great variety of granite, and the primitive 
ranges in the desert east of the Nile, about thirty-five miles from the Red 
Sea, supplied the Romans with numerous hitherto unknown kinds, as well 
as With porphyry, which they quarried so extensively in that district; but ° 
the granite of the ancient Egyptians came from the quarries of Syene, in the 
valley of the Nile, and from these they obtained what was used for their 
monuments. It is from this locality that the name of “ Syenite” has been 
applied to a certain kind of granite; it is, however, far from being all of 
the same nature, and a small portion of the stone found there is really what 
we now call “ Syenite.” 

Already, at the early period of the third and fourth dynasties, between 
twelve and thirteen centuries before the Christian era, the Egyptians exten- 
sively employed granite for various purposes. They had learnt to cut it with 
such skill that the joints of the blocks were fitted with the utmost precision. 
Deep grooves were formed in the hard stone with evident facility ; and it must 
have been known to them for a long period before the erection of the oldest 
monuments that remain, —the pyramids of Memphis, — where granite was 
introduced in a manner which could only result from long experience. 
Again, in the time of the first Osirtasen, about 2050 B. C., granite obelisks 
were erected at Heliopolis and in the Fyoom, and other granite monuments 
were raised in the same reign at Thebes, from which we find that even 
then the Egyptians had learnt how the damp earth acted on granite when 
buried beneath it; and this interesting question subsequently suggests itself: 
How long before that time must the stone have been used to enable them 
to obtain from experience that important hint which led them to place 
granite on limestone substructions ? 


WHAT SHOULD MECHANICAL WORKMEN BE TAUGHT? 


The following extracts from an address on the above subject, recently 
delivered at the South Kensington Museum, London, by J. Scott Russell, 
F.R.S., contain some views on the education of mechanical workmen which 
are both novel and interesting. 


100 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Students in schools were now taught geometry; they were taught the 
sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth propositions of Euclid; 
but that description of knowledge was not of the slightest use to his work- 
men, or to anybody else. They were also taught mechanics and the law of 
the lever. That was right; but, then, mechanics and the law of the lever 
were not ordinarily taught in books in such a way as to be of practical use 
to the British workman. We did not go far enough. But the pupil teach- 
ers whom he addressed were not to blame. The persons to blame were their 
teachers. Two years was, perhaps, all the time that could be devoted to 
education, and six months were often devoted to as many books of Euclid, 
which were wasted for all practical purposes, unless, indeed, the student 
intended to become a professor. He would advise them to skip over the 
beginning, and devote the least possible time to Euclid; in fact, he would 
advise them to do a very heterodox thing — to cut off all the propositions 
but the useful ones. They might naturally exclaim, ‘‘ Then how little will 
be left.” Very little, he admitted; but plane trigonometry would be left. 
Suppose, for instance, a man had but six months in which to learn. Six 
weeks might, in that case, be given to Euclid, and then trigonometry might 
be commenced, solid geometry might next follow, and that constituted the 
whole education of the workman. But that was precisely what he did not 
get in the present day. He would also teach, in the six months, conic sec- 
tions, and afterwards the nature of curves, within the first, second, third, 
and fourth degrees. 

What he had said about geometry was true as to mathematics. Thirteen 
and a half yards at three and a half cents was not what was wanted. Of 
far more importance to the working-man was the comprehension of the. 
laws and relations of numbers, so as to enable him to think in figures about 
the immediate business before him. The first and most important doc- 
trine to remember in mathematics was, that shape is not size, or size shape. 
This might appear to be an axiom, and he thought it was as good as any in 
Euclid. The doctrine of similar triangles was a fundamental principle enti- 
tled to the dignity of an axiom; and it was that, without regard to shape 
and size, any number of triangles might be made all of the same shape, and 
not of the same size. Mr. Russell having illustrated this principle by draw- 
ings on the board, continued to say that, with respect to solid geometry, the 
two great duties in a workman’s life were conversion of materials and adap- 
tation to strength. A mason who used up a wrong stone, or a carpenter who 
selected a wrong plank or piece of timber, showed that he was ignorant of 
one of the most useful portions of his art or calling. Now, nothing would 
teach conversion of materials like solid geometry; it was, in fact, the daily 
business of the workman. It had been said that every block of marble cut 
from the quarry contained a beautiful statue, but the art was how to get it 
out of it. This was very true; but what workmen wanted to know was 
every shape, and how to get out another shape. The workman who took 
from a heap a block of stone or piece of timber that cost his master fifty 
shillings, when a piece could be got answering quite as well which cost twen- 
ty-five shillings, inflicted a loss upon his employer perhaps equal to a week’s 
wages. Hence the necessity of acquiring a knowledge of solid geometry. 
But if there were beauty in the quantity of numbers, and in regular geomet- 
rical figures, there was infinitely more beauty in curves. It was the duty of 
many mechanics, especially of those engaged in ship-building, to make 
curved lines. To him it had always been an interesting subject to learn how 


MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 101 


curves grew. He was aware that he might be told that the higher curve, 
were never taught; but his answer was, that they might easily be taught, 
and that they were very easy of comprehension. In order to effect this, 
somebody who understood the subject would have to be prevailed upon, not 
to write a book, but to put down in the shortest and plainest language what 
he knew of curves. This would be a treatise which the workman could 
understand. The lecturer then explained, with the aid of the board, the 
various mathematical figures known as conic sections, parabola, ellipses 
hyperbola, and the movement of the comets. These, he contended, might 
be learned so as to make the workman master of the principle within six 
months. He also thought that there ought to be a large quantity of appa- 
ratus —a sort of inventory of education—of every conceivable shape and 
object. In addition to these models, he would have the school-room hung 
round, not with pictures of animals, but with solid bodies, which could be 
explained and drawn. He would, in fact, impart any kind of practical rather 
than book knowledge. If drawings merely were used instead of models, he 
did not think the student could imbibe so correct a notion of the object to be 
produced or delineated. There was a mode of studying forms called la théorie 
de développement, but the plain English meant nothing more than making flat 
surfaces into round and angular forms, as models now made from sheets of 
paper, which was a most valuable mode of studying forms. Machinery 
could now be obtained to do all the unintellectual drudgery of mechan- 
ism. He was not opposed to machinery, and had no apprehension that 
it would supersede skilled intellectual handicraft. He would employ 
machinery to do all the drudgery that degraded the workman into a beast 
of burden. He would give him higher views of mathematics; he would 
show him that he was an intellectual, thinking being, with a soul for high 
and immortal things. 


IMPROVED NAILS. 


A French mechanician states that nails formed with two sloping edges may 
be driven into thin wood without risk of splitting it, provided they are made 
to cut the wood across the grain. He recommends manufacturers to make 
nails of this kind in order to save carpenters the trouble and loss of time 
involved in using a gimlet or brad-awl. 


A GREAT MACHINE FOR A SIMPLE PURPOSE,—TURNING BAGS BY 
STEAM. 

We have recently examined a machine more complicated than a stocking 
loom for the simple purpose of turning cloth bags (after they have been 
sewed or woven) the right side out! “Can it be,” we asked the inventor, 
“that there is a demand for machinery for performing so trifling an opera- 
tion as this?” 

“QO, yes,” he said; ‘‘it takes as much time to turn a bag as it does to 
make it, at the present day. In our neighborhood there are two large cotton 
manufactories devoted exclusively to making cloth for bags. In the country 
there are probably three hundred bag manufacturers, employing from two to 
fifty turners each, and one of these machines will do the work of thirty hands. 
One of the large manufacturers in this city told me that the machine, besides 
saving in wages, would enable him to effect considerable economy in his rent, 

ox 


- 


102 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


from the small room occupied by the machine in comparison with all the 
hands he now employs for turning.” 

The machine works in the most accurate, rapid, and beautiful manner, but 
it would be difficult to give any clear idea of its ingenious mechanism without 
diagrams. — Scientific American. 


IMPROVEMENT IN GAS-BURNERS. 


A patent has been recently taken out in England for a gas-burner of the 
following simple construction, designed to prevent the flickering of the light. 
It consists of a tubular cap of thin cast-iron or other metal, having a wide 
internal diameter, so as to fit by its open lower end upon or over an existing 
burner. The top of the burner is in the form of a solid convex end, through 
which a vertical slit is made to form the actual burner aperture for the gas, 
and produces a thin, broad, flat flame. When such a tubular cap is fitted 
upon or over an ordinary burner, the gas is received into the reservoir of the 
tubular cap, and it thence passes slowly off through the burner slit. The 
reservoir intervening between the common burner beneath and the burner 
slit in the top of the cap above, acts as a pressure-regulator, to prevent flick- 
ering and inordinate forcing of the gas, whilst the broad flame insures the 
production of a brilliant light. — Scientific American. 


dh 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 


ON PHYSICS AS A BRANCH OF THE SCIENCE OF MOTION. 


Tue following are the chief points of a paper on the above subject, pre- 
sented to the British Association, 1860, by J. S. Glennie: 

The object of the author was not to enter into the full subject, but, by sub- 
mitting it to discussion, to gain the advantage of criticism. He conceives 
atoms as mutually determining centres of pressure,— that is, more definitely, 
as centres of lines, the intensity and direction of which are determined by the 
intensity and direction of the lines from surrounding atoms. Thus, atoms 
are neither conceived as particles of matter, acted on by extraneous forces 
of attraction and repulsion, nor as vague centres of force; and that pressure 
generally is conceived as measured by M.O. Motion is not conceived as “a 
quality of matter, of which no further account can be given,” but as the 
effect in any place of a difference of the polar pressures on a body in that 
plane. The principle to which the author most constantly has to refer is, 
that “‘the motion of a body is in the direction of least resistance; or, motion 
is the effect of, and proportional to, the difference of polar pressures. From 
thence, by a train of mixed metaphysical and mathematical conceptions, to 
deduce that gravity, the law of universal attraction, is the mechanical con- 
sequence of difference in the masses of a system, mutually connected by 
their lines of pressures and repelling; and that thus the law of the inverse 
squares is rather a mathematical than a physical law. 


ON THE NECESSITY FOR INCESSANT RECORDING, AND FOR SI- 
MULTANEOUS OBSERVATIONS IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES, TO 
INVESTIGATE ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 


The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject presented to 
the British Association, Aberdeen, by Professor W. Thompson: 

The necessity for incessantly recording the electric condition of the atmos- 
phere was illustrated by reference to observations recently made by the 
author in the island of Arran, by which it appeared that even under a cloud- 
less sky, without any sensible wind, the negative electrification of the surface 
of the earth, always found during severe weather, is constantly varying in 
degree. He had found it impossible, at any time, to leave the electrometer 
without losing remarkable features of the phenomenon. Beccaria, Profes- 
sor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Turin a century ago, used to 


104 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


retire to Garzegna when his vacation commenced, and to make incessant 
observations on atmospheric electricity, night and day, sleeping in the room 
with his electrometer, in a lofty position, from which he could watch the sky 
all round, limited by the Alpine range on one side, and the great plain of 
Piedmont on the other. Unless relays of observers can be got to follow his 
example, and to take advantage of the more accurate instruments supplied 
by advanced electric science, a self-recording apparatus must be applied to 
provide the data required for obtaining knowledge in this most interesting 
field of nature. The author pointed out certain simple and easily-executed 
modifications of working electrometers, which were on the table before him, 
to render them self-recording. He also explained a new collecting appa- 
ratus for atmospheric electricity, consisting of an insulated vessel of water, 
discharging its contents in a fine stream froma pointed tube. This stream 
carries away electricity as long as any exists on its surface, where it breaks 
into drops. The immediate object of this arrangement is to maintain the 
whole insulated conductor, including the portion of the electrometer con- 
nected with it and the connecting wire, in the condition of no absolute 
charge; that is to say, with as much positive electricity on one side of a 
neutral line as of negative on the other. Hence the position of the discharg- 
ing nozzle must be such that the point where the stream breaks into drops is 
in what would be the neutral line of the conductor, if first perfectly dis- 
charged under temporary cover, and then exposed in its permanent open 
position, in which it will become inductively electrified by the aérial electro- 
motive force. If the insulation is maintained in perfection, the dropping will 
not be called on for any electrical effect, and sudden or slow atmospheric 
changes will all instantaneously and perfectly induce their corresponding 
variations in the conductor, and give their appropriate indications to the 
electrometer. The necessary imperfection of the actual insulation, which 
tends to bring the neutral line downwards or inwards, or the contrary effects 
of aérial convection, which, when the insulation is good, generally preponder- 
ate, and which, in some conditions of the atmosphere, especially during 
heavy wind and rain, are often very large, are corrected by the tendency of 
the dropping to maintain the neutral line in the one definite position. The 
objects to be attained by simultaneous observations in different localities 
alluded to were: 1. To fix the constant for any observatory, by which its 
observations are reduced to absolute measure of electro-motive force per foot 
of air. 2. To investigate the distribution of electricity in the air itself — 
whether on visible clouds or in clear air—by a species of electrical trigo- 
nometry, of which the general principles were slightly indicated. A port- 
able electrometer, adapted for balloon and mountain observations, with a 
burning match, regulated by a spring so as to give a cone of fire in the open 
air, in a definite position with reference to the instrument, was exhibited. 
It is easily carried, with or without the aid of a shoulder-strap, and can be 
used by the observer standing up, and simply holding the entire apparaius in 
his hands, without a stand or rest of any kind. Its indications distinguish 
positive from negative, and are reducible to absolute measure on the spot. 
The author gave the result of a determination which he had made, with 
the assistance of Mr. Joule, on the Links, a piece of level ground near the 
sea, beside the city of Aberdeen, 8 a.m. on the preceding day (September 
14), under a cloudless sky, and with a light northwest wind blowing, with 
the insulating stand of the collecting part of the apparatus buried in the 
ground, and the electrometer removed to a distance of five or six yards, and 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 105 


connected by a fine wire with the collecting conductor. The height of the 
match was three feet above the ground, and the observer at the electrometer 
lay on the ground to render the electrical influence of his own body on the 
match insensible. The result showed a difference of potentials between the 
earth (negative) and the air (positive) at the match equal to that of one 
hundred and fifteen elements of Daniel’s battery, and, therefore, at that time 
and place, the aérial electro-motive force per foot amounted to that of thirty- 
eight Daniel’s cells. 


ON THE THEORY AND CONSTRUCTION OF LIGHTNING-RODS. 


The theory of a thunder-cloud and a conductor ought to be better under- 
stood in this country than it is, seeing that it lies almost in a nutshell. 
Lightning obeys one unvarying law,— it uniformly follows the best continuous 
conductor; but no conductor can be considered a good one unless it is con- 
tinuous. Numerous evidences of this have been afforded by broken or other- 
wise defective rods. <A flash takes the rod and follows it to where the break 
exists, then finds its next best conductor within the building, immediately 
opposite the spot where it discovered the break, crashes through the wall, 
perhaps where the family are sitting, and deals death around it, finding its 
way into the earth by tortuous channels, the stove-pipe, the gas-pipe, or, in 
their absence, by shattering the wood-work and plastering. Defective rods 
of any kind are mere traps to bring lightning into a house, instead of keep- 
ing it out. They are the most dangerous fixture a man can have about him; 
and though numerous crudely written paragraphs are constantly afloat of 
houses being damaged, though provided with rods, yet it may be assumed 
as absolutely certain that in every such instance the rod has been miserably 
out of order, or put up meanly and cheaply by direction of a penurious 
owner, or by an ignorant and incompetent peddler. The principle of protec- 
tion developed by Franklin remains sound; and all that is needed to secure 
perfect immunity from danger is a strict adherence to what we know it 
demands as the condition of safety. When the usual term for thunder-storms 
is coming on, every careful householder should have his lightning rods ex- 
amined, and, if found defective, put in perfect order. The joints should be 
seen to be close and tight, for continuity is indispensable to safety. If the 
winter’s storm has bent that part which projects above the roof, it should be 
taken down and straightened. See, also, that the lower section which goes 
into the ground has not rusted off, as is often the case. And this thorough 
examination should be made every year. 

Thunder-clouds are charged with different degrees of intensity, some 
heavily, some lightly. Some sweep over the earth at a greater altitude 
than cthers. Those which hang low discharge their contents, whether of 
water or electricity, with the greatest energy. All our thunder-storms, with 
few exceptions, come up from the northwest. Hence the conductors should 
be erected at those points of the building with which the cloud will first 
come in contact. This is necessary, because every thunder-cloud is sur- 
rounded by an electric atmosphere, which precedes the cloud itself. This may 
be easily verified by placing the knuckle to the conductor as the cloud ap- 
proaches. Sparks will frequently be drawn from it while the thunder yet 
rolls in the distance, showing that the electrical haze has already enveloped 
the building, and that the rod is silently conducting the fluid into the earth. 
The rod is already performing its functions with the mere electrical atmos- 


106 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


phere, just as it would seek to do if assailed by an explosion from the cloud. 
But thousands of rods have been put up by the peddlers in direct violation 
of this rule, even when the prominent points of the building were in the 
proper quarter. The gable-ends of barns most remote from the approaching 
cloud are selected by them as frequently as the proper end. Persons of the 
highest pretensions in their business of making conductors are constantly 
committing this grievous error. It cannot be too speedily and generally 
corrected. Some five years ago a young woman was picking cherries in a 
tree which stood near her father’s house, in Warren County, New Jersey. A 
cloud was seen to be approaching, though at a great distance. But it was 
surrounded and preceded by a highly excited electrical atmosphere. There 
Was no rain, as the cloud was a great way off. Yet persons in the neighbor- 
hood saw a flash traverse the air in an almost horizontal line, and shatter the 
tree in which the girl was seated, and she was killed. This was an unusual 
occurrence; and yet a similar discharge has been seen to leave a cloud and 
traverse a great distance, until it reached a stream of rarefied air, sent up 
from a barn but recently filled with new hay. It followed this stream as a 
choice conductor, struck, and destroyed the barn. 

This presence of an electrical atmosphere has sometimes exhibited the 
most remarkable phenomena. The great lightning storm of June, 1818, was 
especially productive of them. Mr. Cooper’s rolling-mill at Trenton, N. J., 
seemed to be charged in every part with electricity. Though that storm 
extended over a surface of seven hundred miles, yet no place witnessed a 
more singular display of its mighty energies than Trenton. The lightning 
struck the earth there repeatedly. A workman at the rolling-mill attempted 
to lower the iron-damper, which was connected with iron chains, but he no 
sooner laid his hand on the latter than he received a shock which prostrated 
him. A second workman repeated the attempt, and was in turn knocked 
down, while the third also received a severe shock. <A fireman attempted to 
stir the melted iron in the furnace, but the instant his iron-stirrer touched the 
fluid metal he received a violent shock. Other similar facts occurred, show- 
ing that the whole atmosphere was charged with electricity to an extraor- 
dinary extent, and that chains, bars, furnaces, and even the melted metal, 
were silently acting as conductors between the cloud and the earth, giving 
out neither shock nor spark unless touched by the unconscious workman. 
The masses of metal which surrounded the three hundred hands employed 
in the mill were so many potent protectors. But the same precautions should 
be used to guard against the electrical atmosphere which invariably precedes 
and surrounds a thunder-cloud, as against the cloud itself. 

The true position in which the rods should be affixed having been ascer- 
tained as mentioned above, the next important question is as to the quantity 
of iron to be used. A wire one-quarter inch thick will effectually protect any 
building, providing there be a point of stiff metal set up on every prominent 
part, with as many outlets into the ground as there are points in the air, the 
whole being connected by cross wires extending over the building. Galvan- 
ized wire is preferable to all others, as it is not liable to oxidation. The 
greater the quantity of iron, and the more numerous the outlets, the greater 
the safety. This is in accordance with Franklin’s directions, except that the 
quantity of iron is increased. A large building should have some hundreds 
of feet of rod, and any building whatever should have not less than two 
points and two outlets. There is a good reason for this apparent profusion 
of iron. Explosions of electricity vary in intensity, some being very feeble, 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 107 


while others are of awful power. No certain calculation can be made as to 
whether the coming shock will be light or heavy; hence it is prudent to 
guard against the latter, as in doing so we effectually disarm the former. A 
light shock will be carried off by a single rod without injury; but the dis- 
charging power of such a rod being uniform with its receiving power, because 
of its single outlet, an explosion on its point may occur, charged with so pro- 
digious a volume of electricity that the capacity of the rod is not great enough 
to carry it off. Herein lies the great danger of an insufficient conductor. 
The discharging power being fixed and limited, any excess of electricity will 
leave the conductor, fly off into the house in search of another, whether it 
be the stove-pipe or the human body, and do its deadly work. Innumerable 
cases where such results have followed an excessive discharge on a conduc- 
tor having a single outlet to the earth are on record. Accounts are often 
published of injury to buildings, though protected by conductors; but 
careful examination into the facts of the case has invariably shown that, 
though the conductor was free from defect, its capacity was too small to 
break up and carry off a heavy shock. It follows, then, that the discharging 
power of a conductor must be equal to its receiving power; that a building 
should be armed with points on all its prominent projections, because no cal- 
culations can be made on which. prominence the shock may fall; that these 
receiving points should have numerous discharging points descending to 
moisture in the earth, and that the whole should be connected by wires in 
several directions across the roof, so that whichever point may happen to 
receive the shock will be aided by the entire network of metal in instantly 
mitigating its intensity by distributing it over a large surface, and passing it 
off by numerous outlets. The fluid concentrated in the shock had been pre- 
viously distributed over the surface of an immense body of clouds. How 
unreasonable it is to expect a single discharging pcint to pass off the volume 
of electricity accumulated in so great a body of vapor. It is for these reasons 
that the cheap conductors are found so often mere traps, bringing the dan- 
gerous element into a building, instead of leading it away. 

It is a mistake, as well as a useless expense, to put up glass insulators to 
prevent the lightning from leaving the rod and passing into the house. No 
flash will quit a properly-constructed rod, because lighting never avoids a 
good conducting medium to follow a bad one. Hence, the rod being con- 
tinuous and the staple not so, iron staples are entirely safe. An explosion 
will shatter glass ones into fragments, and the sleet and ice of winter will as 
certainly destroy them. As few thunder-clouds pass over without discharg- 
ing their watery contents, the glass insulators become wet, and while in that 
condition are as good conductors as the iron staples. An immense amount 
of humbug has been propagated among the people by ignorant peddlers, 
engaged in selling rods, on the necessity of glass insulators. They have 
introduced and sold them as indispensable to protection, either through 
entire ignorance of their worthlessness, or to enhance the profit on their 
wares. So also, with respect to gold or platinum points, costing several 
dollars each. These serve no other purpose but to prevent oxidation. But 
the point of a lightning-rod rarely or never oxidates. Its exposure to the 
air causes it to dry rapidly. If galvanized iron be used, as recommended for 
the wire, it will stand for centuries uninjured. The great object is to make 
every prominent part of the building bristle with points, and to supply them 
with an abundance of outlets to the earth, giving to the whole rod a dis- 
charging power proportioned to, or even greater than, its receiving power. 
— New York Tribune. 


108 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


WAY’S NEW ELECTRIC LIGHT. 


The principle of a new device for obtaining an electric light, originated by 
Professor Way, of London, is the application of the current of a voltaic bat- 
tery to a moving column of mercury. The mercury is contained in a crystal 
globe of the size of an orange, whence it flows through a very minute orifice 
in the form of a thin metallic thread, not larger than a very small needle, toa 
little cup below. From this cup it falls into a basin, to be again restored to 
the globe or reservoir above. During its passage from the globe to the cup it 
comes into contact with the wires of the battery, and a vivid light is pro- 
duced, ceasing whenever the contact is interrupted. The continuance of the 
light is regulated by a piece of clock-work machinery, carrying a revolving 
disc, the face of which is covered with numerous holes, with pins to fit in as 
may be required. In front of the disc are two small cylinders, with pistons 
and arms attached. As the disc revolves, the pins in its face lift the pistons 
in the cylinders and cut off the connection between the battery and the 
lighting apparatus, producing flashes of light of any duration that may be 
required. 

A nocturnal excursion was lately made from the Isle of Wight, to test the 
efficiency of this light. The simple machinery was hoisted to the mast- 
head, and there soon shone out upon the surrounding land and water a light 
almost unnaturally brilliant. Osborne, the country-seat of the Queen, with 
its groves, and gardens, and walks, was rendered in every part distinctly 
visible. When at some distance out, it was found necessary to send a boat 
to the shore, and a little yawl pursued its way along a track of light, which 
made it easily seen from both the ship and the land. The success of the 
experiment was complete, and the large numbers who witnessed it pro- 
nounced Professor Way’s invention far superior to any electric light hitherto 
introduced. 


GASSIOT’S IMPROVEMENT IN THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 


It has long been known that, under certain circumstances, the electric 
discharge from a voltaic battery can be made to traverse short distances 
across air in the form of an intensely luminous, but, at the same time, 
intensely hot spark. If this discharge is made to pass through a glass tube, 
by means of platinum wires sealed into the extremities,—the air having 
previously been exhausted from it by means of an air-pump, — the discharge 
assumes an entirely different aspect. Instead of appearing in ‘the form of 
disconnected sparks, the electric fluid traverses it like a continuous stream 
of nebulous light, filling the tube with a beautiful phosphorescent glow, 
whilst the heat almost disappears; on this account it was uutil very recently 
considered that electricity passed through a vacuum. Recent researches 
have, however, shown that a vacuum really is a non-conductor to the passage 
of the electric fluid, and that the phenomenon of conduction apparent in the 
“vacuum tube”’ was really due to the great conducting power possessed by 
a highly rarefied gas. As soon as this was known, it became a matter of 
great interest to electricians to ascertain the various effects which would be 
produced by having the tube filled with various sorts of gases, and also 
what difference was caused by alterations in the size and shape of the 
vacuum tubes employed. 

The subject was especially investigated by Mr. Gassiot, the well-known 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 109 


English physicist, and the result of his researches has been the discovery of 
a ready and simple means of applying the electric discharge from the induc- 
tion coil to the purposes of illumination. A carbonic acid vacuum tube 
(that is, a tube filled with carbonic acid, which is then exhausted from it by 
means of an air-pump, until there is only the most infinitesimal trace of 
gas remaining), having an internal diameter of about one-sixteenth of an 
inch, is wound in the form of a flattened spiral; to the ends of the tube are 
ditched two wider tubes into which platinum wires are sealed; they are 
inclosed in a wooden case, so as to permit only the spiral to be exposed. 
When the discharge from a Ruhmkorff’s induction apparatus is passed 
through the vacuum tube, the spiral becomes intensely luminous, exhibiting 
a brilliant white light. M. Gassiot, who exhibited the instrument in action 
at a recent meeting of the Royal Society, caused the discharge to pass 
through two miles of copper wire, showing that it would be applicable to 
illumination at a distance. The results were brilliant in the extreme; and 
it was confidently predicted that the new device wouid shortly constitute 
one of the most useful and popular ferms of the ciectric light. 


ON THE USE OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMI 
NATION. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture on the above subject by Professor 
Faraday, recently delivered before the Royal Institution, London: 

The use of light to guide the mariner as he approaches land, or passes 
through intricate channels, has, with the advance of society and its ever in- 
creasing interests, caused such a necessity for means more and more perfect, 
as to tax to the utmost the powers both of the philosopher and the practical 
man, in the development of the principles concerned, and their efficient 
application. Formerly the means were simple enough; and if the light of a 
lantern or torch was not sufficient to point out a position, a fire had to be 
made in iis place. As the system became developed, it soon appeared that 
power could be obtained, not merely by increasing the light, but by directing 
the issuing rays; and this was, in many cases, a more powerful and useful 
means than enlarging the combustion, leading to the diminution of the 
volume of the former, with, at the same time, an increase in its intensity. 
Direction was obtained, either by the use of lenses dependent altogether upon 
refraction, or of reflectors dependent upon metallic reflection; and some an- 
cient specimens of both were shown. In modern times the principle of 
total reflection has also been employed, which involves the use of glass, and 
depends both upon refraction and reflection. In all these appliances much 
light is lost. If metal be used for reflection, a certain proportion is ab- 
sorbed by the face of the metal; if glass be used for refraction, light is 
lost at all the surfaces where the ray passes between the air and the glass; 
and also in some degree by absorption in the body of the glass itself. There 
is, of course, no power of actually increasing the whole amount of light, by 
any optical arrangement associated with it. 

The light which issues forth into space must have a certain amount of 
divergence. The divergence in the vertical direction must be enough to cover 
the sea from the horizon to within a certain moderate distance from the 
shore, so that all ships within that distance may have a view of their lumi- 
nous guide. If it have less, it may escape observation where it ought to be 
seen; if it have more, light is thrown away which ought to be directed within 

: 10 


110 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the useful degree of divergence; or if the horizontal divergence be considered, 
it may be necessary so to consiruct the optical apparatus, that the light 
within an angle of sixty or forty-five degrees shall be compressed into a 
beam diverging only fifteen degrees, that it may give in the distance a bright 
flash having a certain duration instead of a continuous light; or into one 
diverging only five or six degrees, which, though of far shorter duration, has 
greatly increased intensity and penetrating power in hazy weather. The 
amount of divergence depends in a large degree upon the bulk of the source 
of light, and cannot be made less than a certain amount, with a flame of a 
given size. If the flame of an argand lamp, seven-eighths of an inch wide 
and one and a half inches high, be placed in the focus of an ordinary Trinity 
House parabolic reflector, it will supply a beam having about fifteen degrees 
divergence. If we wish to increase the effect of brightness, we cannot prop- 
erly do it by enlarging the lamp flame; for though lamps are made for the 
dioptric arrangement of Fresnel, which have as many as four wicks, flames 
three and a half inches wide, and burn like intense furnaces, yet if one be 
put into the lamp place of the reflector referred to, its effect would chiefly be 
to give a beam of wider divergence; and if, to correct this, the reflector were 
made with a greater focal distance, then it must be altogether of a much 
larger size. The same general result occurs with the dioptric apparatus; and 
here, where the four-wicked lamps are used, they are placed at times nearly 
forty inches distant from the lens, occasioning the necessity of a very large, 
though very fine, glass apparatus. 

On the other hand, if the light could be compressed, the necessity for such 
large apparatus would cease, and it might be reduced from the size of a room 
to the size of a hat; and here it is that we seek in the electric spark, and such 
like concentrated sources of light, for aid in illumination. It is very true 
that by adding lamp to lamp, each with its reflector upon one face or direc- 
tion, power can be gained; and in some of the revolving lights ten lamps and 
reflectors unite to give the required flash. But then not more than three of 
these faces can be placed in the whole circle; and if a fixed light be required 
in all directions round the lighthouse, nothing better has been yet estab- 
lished than the four-wicked Fresnel lamp in the centre of its dioptric and 
catadioptric apparatus. Now the electric light can be raised up easily to an 
equality with the oil lamp, and if then substituted for the latter, will give ail 
the effect of the latter; or, by expenditure of money, it can be raised to a five 
or tenfold power, or more, and will then give five or ten-fold effect. This can 
be done not merely without increase of the volume of the light, but whilst 
the light shall have a volume scarcely the two-thousandth part of that of 
the oil flame. Hence the extraordinary assistance we may expect to obtain 
of diminishing the size of the optical apparatus and perfecting that part 
of it. 

Many compressed intense lights have been submitted to the Trinity House; 
and that corporation has shown its great desire to advance all such objects, 
and improve the lighting of the coast, by spending, upon various occasions, 
much money and much time for this end. It is manifest that the use of a 
lighthouse must be never-failing, its service ever sure; and that the latter 
cannot be interfered with by the introduction of any plan, or proposition, or 
apparatus, which has not been developed to the fullest possible extent, as to 
the amount of light produced, the expense of such light, the wear and tear 
of the apparatus employed, the steadiness of the light for sixteen hours, its 
liability to extinction, the amount of necessary night care, the number of 


. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 111 


attendants, the nature of probable accidents, its fitness for secluded places, 
and other contingent circumstances, which can as well be ascertained out of a 
lighthouse as init. The electric spark which has been placed in the South 
Foreland High Light, by Professor Holmes, to do duty for the six winter 
months, had to go through all this preparatory education before it could be 
allowed this practical trial. It is not obtained from frictional electricity, or 
from voltaic electricity, but from magnetic action. The first spark—and 
even magnetic electricity as a whole— was obtained twenty-eight years ago. 
(Faraday, Philosophical Transactions, 1832, p. 32.) If an iron core be sur- 
rounded by wire, and then moved in the right direction near the poles of a 
maenet, a current of electricity passes, or tends to pass, through it. Many 
powerful magnets are therefore arranged on a wheel, that they may be asso- 
ciated very near to another wheel, on which are fixed many helices with their 
cores like that described. Again: A third wheel consists of magnets ar- 
ranged like the first; next to this is another wheel of the helices, and next to 
this again a fifth wheel carrying magnets. All the magnet wheels are fixed 
to one axle, and all the helix wheels are held immovable in their place. The 
wires of the helices are conjoined and connected with a commutator, which, 
as the magnet wheels are moved round, gathers the various electric currents 
produced in the helices, and sends them up through two insulated wires in 
one common stream of electricity into the lighthouse lantern. So it will be 
seen that nothing more is required to produce the electricity than to revolve 
the magnet wheels. There are two magneto-electric machines at the South 
Foreland, each being put in motion by a two-horse power steam-engine; and, . 
excepting wear and tear, the whole consumption of material to produce the 
lizht is the coke and water required to raise steam for the engines and car- 
bon points for the lamp in the lantern. The lamp is a delicate arrangement 
of machinery, holding the two carbons between which the electric light 
exists, and regulating their adjustment; so that whilst they gradually con- 
sume away, the place of the light shall not be altered. The electric wires 
end in the two bars of a small railway, and upon these the lamp stands. 
When the carbons of a lamp are nearly gone, that lamp is lifted off and 
another instantly pushed into its place. The machines and lamp have done 
their duty during the past six months in a real and practical manner. The 
light has never gone out through any deficiency or cause in the engine and 
machine house, and when it has become extinguished in the lantern, a single 
touch of the keeper’s hand has set it shining as bright as ever. The light 
shone up and down the Channel, and across into France, with a power far 
surpassing that of any other fixed light within sight or anywhere existent. 

To show the necessity for an intense light in lighthouse illumination, Dr. 
Faraday reminded his audience of the dark shadow thrown by the steam is- 
suing from a railway locomotive on a sunshiny day; and, having cast a con- 
centrated light from the eiectric lamp upon a screen, he showed how instan- 
taneously it was darkened by an artificial cloud made of high pressure steam, 
and which might be taken as an illustration of the effect of the sea fogs and 
mists so common near the coast. 


ELECTRIC LIGHT TELEGRAPH. 


Mr. Caselli purposes to employ the electric light for telegraphic purposes 
during war, or in situations that do not admit of the usual communication 
by wire. Signals like those of Morse would be represented by two lengths 


4112 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of light, one long and the other short, and by eclipses of three lengths or 
durations. He proposes to obtain the light either from a Biinsen battery of 
fifty elements, or from a magneto-electrical machine, and gives a preference 
to the latter, as the charcoal points are equally consumed, which is of conse- 
quence when a lens is employed to concentrate the rays. 


VELOCITY OF ELECTRICITY. 


M. M. Guillemin and Burnouf, of France, have recently instituted an ex- 
tensive series of experiments on the transmission of electricity by telegraphic 
wires, with a view of discovering some law which governs its transmission. 
They conclude from their researches that the electric fluid is not propagated 
like the waves or undulations of light, and that it has not a constant and 
uniform velocity. They find it necessary to fall back upon the idea of Ohm, 
expressed in 1827, that electricity is propagated through wires, in virtue of 
the same kind of laws which govern the propagation of heat in a metallic 
bar. To determine experimentally which of these two opinions ought to 
prevail, — that is, whether electricity is propagated with a constant and uni- 
form velocity, or whether it is transmitted like heat, — the authors disposed 
an apparatus, showing the intensity of the electric current in a certain point 
of a conducting wire, at different instants of its propagation. The first or 
the second opinion would then be justified, according as the current acquired 
suddenly in this point its definite intensity, or arrived at this intensity grad- 
ually. The authors found that the current at the point in question began 
with a very feeble intensity (the galvanometer marking 0° 50’), which aug- 
mented gradually, and soon attained a maximum, which it did not surpass, 
however long the contact of the pile with the conducting wire was continued. 
This maximum or permanent state was obtained in 0°024 of a second of time 
(the galvanometer then marking 19° 50/), in four lines of different lengths. 
The experiments were made during very fine weather, from 10 to 12 o’clock 
at night, from the 4th to the 6th of October, 1859, on a telegraph circuit of 
104 leagues in length, passing from Nancy to Strasbourg, Mulhouse and 
Vesul, back to Nancy. 


ANALYSIS OF INDUCTION SPARKS. 


M. Moncel, of France, affirms, as the result of his experiments, that the 
induced spark is not homogeneous, but consists of the original discharge, 
and of a secondary discharge through a luminous atmosphere, which is 
generated by the heating and rarefication of the adjacent air. He also states 
that the discharge through this luminous atmosphere exhibits the most 
striking calorific effects; while the original discharge possesses the proper- 
ties of frictional electricity. By employing a microscope to examine the 
induction spark, he satisfied himself that the luminous atmosphere was only 
a miniature representation of the induction light seen in a vacuum; con- 
tinuing his investigations, he succeeded in detecting in the luminous atmos- 
phere which accompanies the spark when the discharge takes place in 
common air, the stratifications which are so remarkable in the hydrogen 
vacuum. In this experiment he caused the discharge to traverse the flame 
of a wax candle, when the light of the negative pole, instead of being biue, 
as in the hydrogen vacuum, was a brilliant white, owing to the presence of 
carbonaceous particles. When one of the rheophores is plunged into water, 


NATURAL PILILOSOPHY. 1is 


and the discharge taken through the fluid, some curious effects take place, 
modified according to which pole is immersed, but in each case the luminous 
atmosphere exhibits singular corruscations. When the rheophores are sepa- 
rated, so that the direct discharge cannot take place, the effects of the 
luminous atmosphere are still more conspicuous. 


ELECTRICAL ACTION OF THE TORPEDO. 


From the results of some experiments recently published by M. Matteucei, 
we learn that the electro-motive power of the organ of the torpedo exists 
independently of the immediate action of the nervous system. If a section 
of the electric organ of the torpedo which has been dead forty-eight hours, 
or if the torpedo be exposed for the same number of hours to the action of 
the open air, or left for twenty-four hours in a frigorific mixture, where it 
may have hardened or become frozen, or if kept during the latter period in 
water at a temperature from 104° to 122°, be made to communicate with a 
ewalvanometer, a great deviation will be produced. If the torpedo be killed 
with the poison curare or woorali, it will present the same electro-motive 
power as if it had died naturally. In its operations as a nerve-discharging 
battery, its electro-motive power is considerably increased under stimulated 
action. When the nerves of the organs have been several times excited in 
succession, that power for which the torpedo is so remarkable is greatly 
increased, and will produce a greater number of discharges than it would in 
its normal condition. For instance:— Let two pieces of equal dimensions, 
each containing a strong nervous filament, be prepared of one of the organs 
of a torpedo; let them be placed on a piece of gutta-percha, with the two 
nerves opposite to each other, and situated perpendicularly to the prisms of- 
a thermo-clectric apparatus; on closing the circuit of the galvanometer, a 
small differential current becomes apparent, but soon disappears. Then if 
the nerve of a galvanoscopic frog be placed upon each organ, and the circuit 
be broken under a mercury bath while the nerve of one of the pieces is 
being irritated with the points of a fine pair of scissors, the frog then in 
contact with that piece will exhibit violent convulsions. When after this 
the nerve is left at rest, and the circuit of the galvanometer again closed, a 
strong deviation, which lasts a long time, is perceived in the direction of the 
excited organ. The electro-motive power of the organ of a torpedo is not 
influenced by the nature of any gascous medium in which it may be left 
for twenty-four hours. This is proved by comparing, in opposition to each 
other, two pieces preserved in different gases, such as hydrogen, oxygen, 
carbonic acid, and atmospheric air more or less rarefied; when it will appear 
that there is no constant difference between the electro-motive powers of the 
two pieces. 


WEAVING BY ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. 


In the improvement of the old weaving machine, effected by Jacquard, 
under the encouragement of the first Napoleon, the pattern of the design was 
pricked on large perforated cards, which went in an endless chain round a 
roller in the centre of the loom. All the threads of the warp were connected 
with bars in the upper part of the loom, and these, by a movement of the 
weaver’s treadle, were pushed against the perforated cards. Those which 
faced the pattern holes, and therefore corresponded with them, remained 
there, and so, when the lever was lowered, held up the threads which ought 

10* 


114 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to have been raised, and allowed the shuttle to weave in the weft or pattern 
between. 

This machine was an immense improvement on the old affair; yet, though 
always continuing the best, it had its own peculiar drawbacks. Thus, a pat- 
tern for a damask curtain or tablecloth, of a rich or elaborate design, we will 
say, required from twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand cards. To pro- 
duce these occupied men from two to four, six, or even eight months, ac- 
cording to the greater or less intricacy of the design, and cost from six hun- 
dred to nine hundred dollars. As a matter of course, therefore, designs were 
made as simple and plain as possible, were not often changed, and never 
until the trade would no longer take them. 

M. Bonelli at once sets aside all this by the use of electricity. The little 
bobbins or bars which hold up the threads of the warp in the Jacquard loom 
he makes into electro-magnets in the usual way. The design is painted on a 
sheet of tinfoil, with the portions not used in the pattern covered with a non- 
conducting varnish. The pattern passes slowly over a roller under an im- 
mense number of brass teeth, communicating by fine insulated wires with 
the bobbins, the pattern of course being in connection with one pole of the 
battery, and the bobbins, or magnets, with the other. Thus, as the tinfoil 
slowly moves round, the parts which are not to be worked, being covered 
with a non-conducting varnish, transmit no current through the brass teeth 
to the bobbins. The pattern, or exposed portion of the tinfoil, on the con- 
trary, does so, and transforms the bobbins into electro-magnets, which attract 
and hold the bars opposite their points attached to the threads of the warp, 
and these bars being thus held up for an instant, of course raise the 
threads of the warp below, and allow the shuttle to weave in a particular 
pattern. 

This is merely a very rough and general outline of the old and new plans. 
The latter, however, is far too important to be thus disposed of in a few 
words. What we have already said will, nevertheless, assist our readers to 
comprehend the details of this most valuable improvement. The electric 
loom, as it is termed, was invented in 1854, by the Chevalier Bonelli, of 
Milan, and director of the Sardinian telegraphs. The first machine, con- 
structed at Turin, was afterwards modified by M. Hipp, at Berne; and though 
it demonstrated the possibility of weaving by means of electro-magnetism, 
it nevertheless left much to be desired with respect to the success of its prac- 
tical application. It was not until 1859 that success in perfecting the ma- 
chinery, and in rendering it available for either hand or power-loom weaving, 
was attained. To fully appreciate all the advantages which this application 
of electricity to the manufacture of woven material must produce, it is neces- 
sary always to keep in mind the long and costly operations which, as we 
have said, are now incurred before commencing weaving in one or two 
colors. 

Firstly, then, in weaving by the old machine, we must remember the design 
is drawn on paper divided into a multitude of little squares, the horizontal 
series representing the weft, or pattern; the cross, or short series, the warp, 
or substance of the material woven. Secondly, the design must be “ read; ” 
that is, the punches of the stamping machine, which are equal in number to 
the small squares of the pattern, must be arranged so as to perforate the 
cards, which, as we have shown, form the basis of the present Jacquard 
system. Each of these operations must be repeated as many times as there 
are horizontal lines in the design, — which merely represents one thread of 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Ls 


the weft, —as there must be as many cards as there are wefts or cross-threads 
ina pattern. Lastly, all the cards must be sewn together in the order of 
their succession. We have already shown how in the ‘‘ Jacquard” these 
pierced cards act on the pins of the loom, and determine the raising of the 
threads of the warp or basis of the material beneath. M. Bonelli’s looms 
instantly accomplish all this work we have been describing, with an exacti- 
tude that could never be obtained from “the cards,” which, as our readers 
will easily understand, were almost incapable of producing a very complex 
paitern. Itis by passing the thread of the weft over or under the thread of 
the warp that the design, either in one or many colors, is produced. The 
design in M. Bonelli’s plan is traced on a sheet of tinfoil, the pattern remain- 
ing in bright metal, while all the rest is painted over with a non-conducting 
varnish. The metal pattern thus becomes the conductor of the electricity ; 
the varnished portions do not. This thin sheet of tinfoil is placed on a roller, 
which revolves it by very slow degrees, with a uniform movement, under a 
metallic comb. This comb contains teeth equal in number to the pins of a 
Jacquard loom, — from four hundred to six hundred, —each of which is 
most carefully insulated from the next, and each connected by a fine wire 
with a small electro-magnet or bobbin. A wire from a small Bunsen pile is 
connected with this comb and electro-magnets, the other wire with the tinfoil 
design. When by the ordinary movement of the Jacquard loom, effected by 
the foot of the workman pressing the treadles, the loom moves, the metallic 
comb lowers itself, and comes in contact with the tinfoil sheet of the design. 
The teeth of the comb touching on the varnished portions, of course, stop the 
passage of an electric current to the bars with which they communicate, and 
which, in fact, therefore remain mere bobbins. All those, on the contrary, 
which touch the metallic parts of the sheet —the design, in fact — allow the 
current to pass to the electro-magnets, which instantly become active, and 
capable of attracting little horizontal bars of iron, which are arranged with 
their points towards the magnets in a frame common to them all. Those 
magnets, therefore, which are active, at once attract and retain the bars as the 
frame, all by a simple movement, in a second, moves a little back and lowers, 
and thus the threads of the warp below, which are attached to crochet- 
needles hanging on to the magnetized bars, are raised, and the shuttle with 
the weft of the pattern-thread passes in between them. 

There is a little mechanical contrivance employed to give solidity to the 
arrangement of the bars, —a solidity which is necessary, as the magnetized 
bars have to act upon the needles of the loom, and keep them and their 
threads suspended. Such are the chief features of this electro-magnetic 
weaving machine, which, apart from its scientific merits, contains, in addi- 
tion, some most admirable mechanical contrivances. Such, for instance, is 
the ingenious means by which the design-sheet moves with a speed variable 
at will, and either backwards or forwards, and the addition of a little brush 
to clean the comb. This last, at each motion of the loom, sweeps across all 
its teeth, to prevent the injurious action of the dust, which, falling upon the 
surface, would soon interfere with the action of the electric fluid. The loom 
which we have now described is only applicable to stuffs of two colors; that 
is to say, of one color upon one general ground. Buta loom capable of 
weaving stuffs of six, eight, or ten colors, only differs by the addition of 
a most simple piece of mechanism, thus: Each of the different colors is 
insulated from the other, and along them, on the pattern, the pole of the bat- 


116 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tery slowly passes as the weaver works the machine with his feet, transmit- 
ting the current to each color in the order in which they occur. 

Thus, of course, the current is sent through the comb to the electro-mag- 
nets, which raise the thread of the warp below, where the weaver has his 
color-shuttles arranged in the order in which they are to be used, and throws 
them in accordingly. So the loom just as easily, and on the same principle, 
transmits the pattern to a stuff of twelve colors as to that of only two. It 
is in this that the weaving by electricity displays its superiority over the pre- 
sent system, according to which, for example, if a material is to be worked 
in six colors, it is necessary by the Jacquard loom to employ six times more 
cards than for a similar design of one color. The advantages, therefore, 
which ought to result from the introduction of the electro-magnetic loom in 
the manufacture of all our patterned fabrics are sufficiently apparent. A 
new method, which does away with all the operations necessary to the pre- 
paration of the cards, must, of course, produce an all-important saving of 
both time and money upon the present system of manufacture. But there 
are other and not unimportant advantages, such, for instance, as permitting 
all manufacturers to try the effect of new patterns without going through 
the long and costly process of preparing cards. He can ascertain in a few 
hours the effect of any design, and prepare a series of specimens for the 
approbation of the trade before commencing upon a single yard of stuff. In 
short, whatever can be done by printing, lithographing, or engraving, can be 
thus stamped on tinfoil, and reproduced in colored silks, according to the 
colors of the original, with all the fidelity of an electrotype. 

By this means, at 4 trifling cost, families can have special designs, such as 
crests and initials, for carpeting, curtains, furniture covers, etc., at a week’s 
notice. In this loom also the workman is enabled, with the greatest facility, 
to effect a reduction of the design, by means of varying the speed of the 
cylinder on which the pattern is placed. Without alteration, or without 
touching the design, it can with equal facility make stuffs more or less strong 
or more or less light, by changing the number of the threads of the weft, and 
by regulating, in accordance with that change, the speed of the cylinder on 
which the pattern revolves. Of course, any required additional effect can be 
made, or any part omitted from the design, without at all interfering with 
the workman. Asa matter of course, the electrical portions of the invention 
are capable of application to any loom, and, in fact, occupy, at the top of the 
machine, no more space than a small writing-desk. It is only the cards and 
cumbrous accessories of the Jacquard loom which are done away with; its 
mechanical properties are retained, and the electro-magnets can be applied to 
any. It is expected that with this machine, in all very large or intricate pat- 
terns, such as are now occasionally used in silks, a saving of eighty per cent 
in money, and more than eighty per cent in time, will be gained upon the 
production of similar designs by the present system. 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF MAGNETIC FORCE ON THE ELECTRIC 
DISCHARGE. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture recently delivered before the Royal 
Institution, Great Britain, by Professor Tyndall, which was intended to illus- 
trate the constitution of the electric discharge, and of the action of magnetism 
upon it: — 

1. The influence of the transport of particles was first shown by an experi- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. pErg 


ment suggested, it was believed, by Sir John Herschel, and performed by 
Professor Daniell. The carbon terminals of a battery of forty cells of Grove 
were brought within one eighth of an inch of each other, and the spark from 
a Leyden jar was sent across this space. This spark bridged with carbon 
particles the gap which had previously existed in the circuit, and the bril- 
liant electric light due to the passage of the battery current was immediately 
displayed. 

2. The magnified image of the coal points of an electric lamp was pro- 
jected upon a white screen, and the distance to which they could be drawn 
apart without interrupting the current was noted. <A button of pure silver 
was then introduced in place of the positive carbon, a luminous discharge 
four or five times the length of the former being thus obtained. The silver 
was first observed to glow, and afterwards to pass into a state of violent ebulli- 
tion. A narrow dark space was observed to surround one of the poles, cor- 
responding probably with the dark space observed in the discharge of Ruhm- 
korff’s coil through rarefied media. 

3. The action of a magnet upon the splendid stream of green light obtained 
in the foregoing experiment was exhibited. A small horseshoe magnet of 
Logemann was caused to approach the light, which was bent hither and 
thither, according as the poles of the magnet changed their position: the 
discharge in some cases formed a magnificent green bow, which on the fur- 
ther approach of the magnet was torn asunder, and the passage of the cur- 
rent thereby interrupted. It was Davy who first showed the action of a 
magnet upon the voltaic arc. The transport of matter by the current was 
further illustrated by a series of deposits on glass obtained by Mr. Gassiot 
from the continued discharge of an induction coil.» 

4. A discharge from Ruhmkorff’s coil was sent through an attenuated 
medium and the glow which surrounded the negative electrode was referred 
to. One of the most remarkable effects hitherto observed was that of a 
magnet upon this negative light. Pliicker had shown that it arranges itself 
under the influence of the magnet exactly in the direction of the magnetic 
curves. Iron-filings strewn in space, and withdrawn from the action of grav- 
ity, would arrange themselves around a magnet exactly in the manner of 
the negative light. An electric lamp was placed upon its back; a horseshoe 
magnet was placed horizontally over its lens, and on the magnet a plate of 
glass: a mirror inclined at an angle of 45° received the beam from the lamp, 
and projected it upon the screen. Iron-filings were scattered on the glass, 
and the magnetic curves thus illuminated were magnified, and brought to 
clear definition upon the screen. The negative light above referred to arranges 
itself, according to Pliicker, in a similar manner. 

5. The rotation of an electric current round the pole of a magnet, dis- 
covered by Mr. Faraday in the Royal Institution, nearly forty years ago, was 
next shown; and the rotation of a luminous current from an induction coil 
in an exhausted receiver, by the same magnet, was also exhibited, and both 
shown to obey the same laws. 

6. Into a circuit of twenty cells a large coil of copper wire was introduced, 
and when the current was interrupted, a bright spark, due to the passage of 
the extra current, was obtained. The brightness and loudness of the spark 
were augmented when a core of soft iron was placed within the coil. The 
disruption of the current took place between the poles of an electro-magnet; 
and when the latter was excited, an extraordinary augmentation of the loud- 
ness of the spark was noticed. This effect was first obtained by Page, and 


118 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


was for a time thought to denote a new property of the electric current. 
But Rijke had shown in a paper, the interest of which is by no means less- 
ened by the modesty with which it is written, that the effect observed by 
Page is due to the sudden extinction of the primary spark by the magnet; 
which suddenness concentrates the entire force of the extra current into a 
moment of time. Speaking figuratively, it was the concentration of what, 
under ordinary circumstances, is a mere push, into a sudden kick of projec- 
tile energy. . 

7. The contact-breaker of an induction coil was removed, and a current 
from five cells was sent through the primary wire. The terminals of the 
secondary wire being brought very close to each other, when the primary 
was broken by the hand, a minute spark passed between the terminals of the 
secondary. When the disruption of the primary was effected between the 
poles of an excited electro-magnet, the small spark was greatly augmented 
in brilliancy. The terminals were next drawn nearly an inch apart. When 
the primary was broken between the excited magnetic poles, the spark from 
the secondary jumped across this interval, whereas it was incompetent to 
cross one-fourth of the space when the magnet was not excited. This result 
was also obtained by Rijke; who rightly showed, that in this case also the 
augmented energy of the secondary current was due to the augmented speed 
of extinction of the primary spark between the excited poles. This,experi- 
ment illustrated in a most forcible manner the important influence which the 
mode of breaking contact may have upon the efficacy of an induction coil. 
The splendid effects obtained from the discharge of Ruhmkorff’s coil through 
exhausted tubes were next referred to. The presence of the coil had compli- 
cated the theoretic views of philosophers, with regard to the origin of those 
effects ; the intermittent action of the contact-breaker, the primary and second- 
ary currents, and their mutual reactions, producing tertiary and other currents 
of a higher order, had been more or Jess invoked by theorists, to account for the 
effects observed. Mr. Gassiot was the first to urge, with a water battery of 
three thousand five hundred cells, a voltaic spark across a space of air, before 
bringing the electrodes into contact; with the self-same battery he had ob- 
tained discharges through exhausted tubes, which exhibited all the pheno- 
mena hitherto observed with the induction coil. He thus swept away a host 
of unnecessary complications which had entered into the speculations of 
theorists upon this subject. 

8. On the present occasion, through the kindness of Mr. Gassiot, the 
speaker was enabled to illustrate the subject by means of a battery of four 
hundred of Grove’s cells. The tension at the ends of the battery was first 
shown by an ordinary gold-leaf electroscope; one end of the battery being 
insulated, a wire from the other end was connected with the electroscope; 
the leaves diverged; on now connecting the other end of the battery with 
the earth, the tension of the end connected with the electrometer rose, ac- 
cording to a well-known law, and the divergence was greatly augmented. 

9. A large receiver, in which a vacuum had been obtained by filiing it with 
carbonie acid gas, exhausting it, and permitting the residue to be absorbed 
by caustic potash, was placed equatorially between the poles of the large 
electro-magnet. The jar was about six inches wide, and the distance be- 
tween its electrodes was ten inches. The negative electrode consisted of a 
copper disk, four inches in diameter; the positive one was a brass wire. An 
accident had recentiy occurred to this jar. Mr. Faraday, Mr. Gassiot, and 
the speaker had been observing the discharge of the nitric acid battery 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 


through it. Stratified discharges passed when the ends of the battery were 
connected with the electrodes of the receiver; and on one occasion the dis- 
charge exhibited an extraordinary effulgence; the positive wire emitted 
light of dazzling brightness, and finally gave evidence of fusion. On inter- 
terrupting the circuit, the positive wire was found to be shortened about 
half an inch, its metal having been scattered by the discharge over the 
interior surface of the tube. 

10. The receiver in this condition was placed before the audience, in the 
position mentioned above. When the ends of the four-hundred-cell battery 
were connected with the wires of the receiver, no discharge passed; but on 
touching momentarily with the finger any portion of the wire between the 
positive electrode of the receiver and the positive pole of the battery, a 
brilliant discharge instantly passed, and continned as long as the connection 
with the battery was maintained. This experiment was several times re- 
peated: the connection with the ends of the battery was not sufficient to 
produce the discharge, but in all cases the touching of the positive wire 
caused the discharge to flash through the receiver. Previous to the fusion 
of the wire above referred to, this discharge usually exhibited fine stratifi- 
cation: its general character now was that of a steady glow, through which, 
however, intermittent luminous gushes took place, each of which presented 
the stratified appearance. 

11. On exciting the magnet between whose poles the receiver was placed, 
the steady glow curved up or down, according to the polarity of the mag- 
net, and resolved itself into a series of effulgent transverse bars of light. 
These appeared to travel from the positive wire along the surface of the jar. 
The deflected luminous current was finally extinguished by the action of the 
magnet. : 

12. When the circuit of the magnet was made and immediatcly inter- 
rupted, the appearance of the discharge was extremely singular. At first 
the strata rushed from the positive electrode along the upper surface of the 
jar, then stopped, and appeared to return upon their former track, and pass 
successively with a deliberate motion into the positive electrode. They were 
perfectly detached from each other; and their successive ingulfments at 
the positive electrode were so slow as to be capable of being counted aioud 
with the greatest ease. This deliberate retreat of the strata towards the 
positive pole was due, no doubi, to the gradual subsidence of the power of 
the magnet. Artificial means might probably be devised to render the re- 
cession of the discharge still slower. The rise of power in the magnet was 
also beautifully indicated by the deportment of the current. After the cur- 
rent had been once quenched, as long as the magnet remained excited no 
discharge passed; but on breaking the magnet circuit, the luminous glow 
reappeared. Not only, then, is there an action of the magnet upon the par- 
ticles transported by an electric current, but the above experiment indicates 
that there is an action of the magnet upon the electrodes themselves, which 
actually prevents the escape of their particles. The influence of the magnet 
upon the electrode would thus appear to be prior to the passage of the 
eurrent. 

13. The discharge of the battery was finally sent through a tube, whose 
platinum wires were terminated by two small balls of carbon: a glow was 
first produced; but on heating a portion of the tube containing a stick of 
caustic potash, the positive ball sent out a luminous protrusion, which sub- 


120 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


sequently detached itself from the ball; the tube becoming instantly after- 
wards filled with the most brilliant strata. 

There can be no doubt that the superior effulgence of the bands obtained 
with this tube is due to the character of its electrodes; the bands are the 
transported matter of these electrodes. May not this be the case with other 
electrodes? There appears to be no uniform flow in nature; we cannot get 
either air or water through an orifice in a uniform stream; the friction 
against the orifice is overcome by starts, and the jet issues in pulsations. 
Let a lighted candle be quickly passed through the air; the flame will break 
itself into a beaded line in virtue of a similar intermittent action, and it may 
be made to sing, so regular are the pulses produced by its passage. Analogy 
might lead us to suppose that the electricity overcomes the resistance at the 
surface of its electrode in a similar manner, escaping from it in tremors; 
the matter which it carries along with it being broken up into strata, as 
liquid vein is broken into drops. 


ON THE ORIGIN OF ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 


It is well known that the earth is, relatively to the air, negatively electri- 
fied. Ifa bar of polished metal be held horizontally, no electrical phenom- 
ena are manifested, but when it is turned to a vertical direction at once the 
lower extremity becomes positively electrified, and the upper negatively. 
This takes place evidently by induction. So in a thunder-storm. The air 
at the surface, becoming abnormaliy heated and moist, comes to be in a state 
of tottering equilibrium, in which state the slightest disturbance will throw 
it rolling over and over, and, rising into colder regions, it condenses and falls 
asrain. The rising column, like the bar before mentioned, becomes at bot- 
tom charged with positive electricity, and at the top with negative; and the 
thunder-cloud becomes, in fact, two, one above the other, which Mr. Wise, 
the aeronaut, has often seen and described. Between these, filled with oppo- 
site electricities, a gigantic spark passes, which is the forked lightning. 
Thus the conclusion is that atmospheric electricity is due to induction from 
the earth. — Prof. Henry. 


NEW SECONDARY PILE OF GREAT POWER.—BY M. G. PLANTE. 


Jacobi proposed recently the use of secondary electric currents for tele- 
graphic purposes, and Planté had suggested the substitution of electrodes of 
lead for those of platinum in these batteries. A more extended study has 
convinced him of their use. He states that a battery with electrodes of lead 
has two and a half times the electro-motive force of one with electrodes of 
platinized platinum, and six times as great as that of one with ordinary plati- 
num. This great power arises from the powerful affinity which peroxide of 
lead has for hydrogen, a fact first noticed by De la Rive. The secondary 
battery which he recommends has the following construction: It con- 
sists of nine elements, presenting a total surface of ten square metres. Each 
element is formed of two large lead plates, rolled into a spiral, and separated 
by coarse cloth, and immersed in water acidulated with one-tenth sulphuric 
acid. The kind of current used to excite this battery depends on the 
manner in which the secondary couples are arranged. If they are arranged 
so as to give three elements of triple surface, five small Bunsen’s cells, the 
zines of which are immersed to a depth of seven centimetres, are sufficient 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 121 


to give, after a few minutes’ action, a spark of extraordinary intensity when 
the current is closed. The apparatus plays, in fact, just the part of a con- 
denser; for by its means the work performed by a battery, after the lapse of 
a certain time, may be collected in an instant. An idea of the intensity of 
the charge will be obtained by remembering that to produce a similar effect 
it would be necessary to arrange three hundred bunsen’s elements of the 
ordinary size (thirteen centinfetres in height), so as to form four or five 
elements of three and a half square metres of surface, or three elements 
of still greater surface. If the secondary battery be arranged for intensity, 
the principal battery should be formed of a number of elements sufficient 
to overcome the inverse electro-motive force developed. For nine secondary 
elements, about fifteen Bunsen’s cells should be taken, which might, how- 
ever, be very small. 

From the malleability of the metal of which it is formed, this battery is 
readily constructed; by taking the plates of lead sufficiently thin, a large 
surface may be placed in a small space. The nine elements used by Planté 
are placed in a box thirty-six centimetres square, filled with liquid once for 
all, and placed in closed jars; they may also be kept charged in a physical 
cabinet, and ready to be used whenever it is desired to procure, by means 
of a weak battery, powerful discharges of dynamic electricity. — Comptes 
Rendus, March 26th, 1860. 


EFFECT OF PRESSURE ON ELECTRO-CONDUCTING POWER. 


M. Elie Wartmann has found experimentally that the electric conductibility 
of copper wire is sensibly diminished by a pressure of fifty atmospheres, 
that this diminution increases with the pressure, and disappears when the 
pressure is relieved. The experiments were carried up to four hundred 
atmospheres. These results establish a new analogy between heat, light, 
and electricity. —L’ Institut. 


ON THE TRANSMISSION OF ELECTRIC EFFECTS ACROSS WATER 
WITHOUT THE AID OF TRANSVERSE WIRES. 


At the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association, 1859, Mr. Lindsay, of 
Dundee, stated that he commenced experimenting in 1814 in telegraphing 
across water, without wires first, and then by means of two uninsulated wires; 
and finding the latter method much more powerful, he preferred it, and tele- 
graphed in that way through several ponds in Dundee. In 1852 he resumed 
experiments without transverse wires. In 1853 he made experiments on a 
larger scale at Portsmouth, and succeeded in crossing more than a quarter 
of a mile. More recently he had made additional experiments, and succeeded 
in crossing the Tay where it was three-quarters of a mile broad. His method 
‘had always been to immerse two plates or sheets of metal on the one side, 
and connect them by a wire passing through a coil to move a needle, and to 
have on the other side two sheets similarly connected, and nearly opposite 
the two former. Experiments had shown that only a fractional part of the 
electricity generated goes across, and that the quantity that thus goes across 
can be increassed in four ways: first, by an increase of battery power; 
second, by increasing the surface of the immersed sheet; third, by increas- 
ing the coil that moves the receiving needle; and fourth, by increasing the 
lateral distance. In cases where lateral distance could be got, he recom- 
11 


122 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


mended increasing it, as by that means a smaller battery was requisite. In 
telegraphs by this method to Ireland or France, abundance of lateral distancé 
could be got; but for America the lateral distance in Britain was much less 
than the distance across. In the greater part of his experiments the distance 
at the side had been double the distance across; but in the experiment across 
the Tay the lateral distance was the smaller, being only about half a mile, 
while the distance across was three-quarters of a mile. Of the four elements 
above mentioned, he thought that if any one were doubled, the quantity of 
electricity that crossed would also be doubled; and if all the elements were 
doubled, the quantity transmitted would be eight times as great. In the ex- 
periment across the Tay the battery-power was of four square feet of zinc; 
the immersed sheets contained about ninety square feet; the weight of the 
copper coil was about six pounds; the lateral distance was less than the 
transverse distance, but if it had been a mile, and the distance across also a 
mile, the signal would no doubt have been equally distinct. Should the 
above law (when the lateral distance is equal to the transverse) be found cor- 
rect, the following table might thus be formed :— 


Zinc for battery. Immersed sheets. Coil. Distance crossed. 
Square feet. Square feet. Pounds. Miles. 

= 90 6 1 

8 180 12 8 

16 860 24 64 

82 720 48 512 

64 1440 96 4096 

128 2880 192 32,768 


But supposing the lateral distance to be only half the transverse, then the 
distance crossed might be sixteen thousand miles; and if it was only a fourth, 
then there would be eight thousand miles, and thus a greater distance than 
the breadth of the Atlantic. Further experiments were, however, necessary to 
determine the law. On the battery side he had made the electricity pass through 
a coil of thick wire, and on the receiving side through one of small wire; 
and when a battery and receiver were on each side, by means of a shifter of 
communication, the path for sending was through the thick wire, and for 
receiving through the small. Since this last experiment he had increased 
the coil, and thought there was power to transmit signals for two miles. 
According to this calculation, he thought a battery of one hundred and thirty 
square feet, immersed sheets of three thousand square feet, a coil of two 
hundred pounds weight, were sufficient to cross the Atlantic, with the Jateral 
distance that could be obtained in Great Britain. 

In the course of the discussion Sir D. Brewster said that he was a member 
of the committee entrusted with the experiments alluded to by Lord Rosse 
during the Great Exhibition. The result was this: they sent messages across 
the Serpentine in the usual way; the wire was then broken. With a gap of° 
six feet the messages still went, and when the distance was increased to six- 
teen and twenty feet they still went. 

Experiments of Mr. Beardmore.—Mr. S. Beardmore, a civil-engineer of 
London, has recently published a pamphlet on the subject of the applicability 
of terra-voltaism to submarine telegraphs, in which he gives an account of 
some hopeful experiments made by him between Cromer and Heligoland, 
through a line three hundred miles in length. He employed a simple terra- 
voltaic apparatus, such as he seems convinced must ultimately be used for 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. : 123 


long submarine telegraphs, instead of the battery system heretofore in use. 
The new apparatus consists merely of a couple of earth plates, positive and 
negative, one at either extremity of the line, no other battery being used. 
By such means it is anticipated that all necessity for insulation of the wires, 
or at least dependence on perfect insulation, will be.obviated, the electricity 
eyolved by a single voltaic couple, while connected with the respective ends of 
the wire, having no tendency to escape to the earth during transit. The chief 
difficulty relates to the question of intensity, as by the-single arrangement 
increase of surface only affords increase of quality, and not of intensity, as 
by the battery method. Mr. Beardmore thinks that the present sub-Atlantic 
cable would prove to be not wholly useless, if efforts were made to work it on 
his terra-voltaic principle. 


ON THE GREAT AURORAS OF AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER, 1859. 


Professor Loomis, in a paper on the great auroras of August and Septem- 
ber, 1859, read before the American Association for 1860, characterized the 
display as unsurpassed by any on record for magnificence and geographical 
extent. The disturbance of the magnetic instruments was well-nigh unpre- 
cedented for violence, and it may be safely asserted that the phenomena ex- 
tended over the entire circuit of the globe. The aurora of September 2d formed 
a belt of light encircling the northern hemisphere, extending southward in 
America to latitude 223°, and reaching to an unknown distance on the north; 
until it pervaded an interval between the elevation of fifty and five hundred 
miles above the earth’s surface. The illumination consisted chiefly of lumi- 
nous beams or columns everywhere parallel to the direction of a magnetic 
needle freely suspended. These beams were about five hundred miles in 
length, and their diameter varied from five to ten or twenty miles, and 
were, perhaps, sometimes still greater. 


IMPROVED GALVANO-PLASTC PROCESS. 


An improvement in the method of producing copies of busts, statues, 
groups, and round ornaments, by the galvano-plastic process, has just been 
made public. The principle of the invention is the use of conductors so 
arranged as to spread the electrical current over a large surface. The modes 
of applying it differ according to circumstances. One plan is as follows: A 
piece of copper, or of charcoal, is made to represent in miniature the form 
in outline of the object to be reproduced; this miniature conductor is attached 
to the negative pole, and then introduced into the interior of the mould, 
which, of course, is in connection with the same pole; the whole is then 
plunged together in the bath. The metal is conducted by the various points 
of this miniature conductor towards all the various hollows which correspond 
with its prominences. This, however, was but a rude form of the methods 
adopted. The inventor, M. Lenoir, afterwards substituted for the miniature 
above described a light frame or mass formed of metallic wire, or of any 
other conducting material, which he introduced in the same manner into 
the hollow of the mould; by this means he obtained a large number of 
conductors, which approached every portion of the interior of the mould, 
and formed what he calls a mass of nerves for conducting the electricity into 
the most intricate portions of the hollow mould. These wires also render 
ihe decomposition of the solution unusually active, —so much so that the 


124 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


gas liberated rises constantly to the surface in large beads. The deposit, 
however, is made with perfect regularity and uniformity. 


PROTECTION OF SILVERED SURFACES. 


Baron von Liebig has patented certain improvements in protecting the sil- 
yered surfaces of mirrors and other articles of glass. This method consists 
in preparing the silvered surface, by depositing thereon a coating of copper, 
gold, or other metal, by electro-galvanic action, combined with the use of a 
neutral solution of the double salt tartrate of the oxide of copper, and soda, 
potash, or ammonia. 


DURALILITY OF ELECTROTYPE WORK. 


Mr. E. Richardson, in a communication to the Builder, London, gives the 
following information as to the probable durability of electrotype metal, and 
its thickness. Mr. Richardson states that in 1844, being called upon to fur- 
nish metal medallions, ete., for the granite testimonial to General Sir Alex- 
ander Dickson, on Woolwich-common, a very exposed situation, he suz- 
gested electrotype castings. A consultation of officers on the questign fol- 
lowed, the results being full permission to reproduce the models in electro- 
type copper, which was ably executed. These castings were at that time of 
unusual size and thickness, namely, two feet six inches diameter, and fully 
an eighth of an inch thick of solid metal. This was effected also without 
shrinking, and every tool-touch from the clay model was reproduced. These 
works have been now exposed for fifteen years. They weighed, Mr. Rich- 
ardson believes, thirty pounds each. No chasing was required. 

On the other hand, Mr. Richardson has had for years a small brass, about 
fifteen inches high, produced by the old fire-process, which cost pounds to 
chase, obliterating every line of his original model, and weighing nearly a 
quarter of a hundredweight. 


NEW APPLICATION OF ELECTRO-METALLURGY. 


Among the recent applications of electro-metallurgy we may instance the 
happy idea of Mr. Gaudin of employing it in setting jewels. This is a very 
delicate and expensive branch of jewelry, and so difficult that the setting of 
a jewel can seldom be fully relied upon. The inventor first takes a mould in 
wax of the ornament that is to receive the jewels, then places on it, at the 
proper points, the jewels, embedded in the wax to a sufficient depth; the 
wax model, rendered a conductor of electricity, is placed in the gold solu- 
tion, and the metal deposited upon it. When the deposit is completed, the 
jewel is found firmly enchased in the metal, from which, if the process has 
been properly conducted, it will be impossible for the jewel to escape. The 
saving of time effected by this process is also very considerable. By the or- 
dinary process a jeweller can scarcely set sixty jewels in a day, but by the 
new process he can set as many as fifteen hundred to two thousand in a 
day. 


LAST OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE. 


During the past summer, several attempts have been made to elevate and 
recover the American end of the Transatlantic telegraph; but in every in- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. © 125 


stance in which it was hooked up to the surface it soon broke, and was 
finally abandoned. The following extracts from the log of the party em- 
ployed will, however, be read with interest, as the last transaction connected 
with this gigantic but unfortunate enterprise : — 

On the 12th of June, Captain Kell succeeded in fishing up and buoying the 
end, after recovering three- “quarters of a mile of the cable. 

On the 14th operations were resumed, and three miles and a half of cable 
recovered, when a fracture occurred. 

On the 23d the cable was hooked in ninety fathoms, and parted both ways, 
the bight and a short piece of cable coming on board. 

25th. The cable was hooked again, but parted when within fifteen fathoms 
of the surface, as it had done on several previous occasions. 

27th. Grapnelling was resumed in one hundred and fourteen fathoms ; the 
cable was hooked several times, and with one exception parted before reach- 
ing the surface. Care was taken to buoy the spot the moment the cable 
broke, and by grapnelling from a quarter to half a mile east of the buoy we 
hoped to succeed in raising the bight, and did at last get iton board. On 
testing the cable towards Ireland, it was found to be broken a very short dis- 
tance from the vessel, three-quarters of a mile of cable being recovered 
before it parted again at a weak place. 

28th. The wind and sea too high for working. A fresh consultation was 
held as to the best mode of proceeding, and it was resolved to go further out 
at once, hoping thereby to avoid the rocky ground and the bad state of the 
cable. 

30th. The cable was hooked three times from the steamer, in one hundred 
and thirty fathoms of water, but broke before reaching the surface. At last 
a bight came on board, the cable at this spot being unusually good for about 
thirty yards; the outer end was found to be broken about two hundred yards 
off. About two miles of the inner end were recovered, when it parted again 
at a weak place, where there was nothing but the gutta percha covered wire 
left; this, however, was just able to bring the cable to the surface, when it 
snapped before it could be secured by a stopper. Although mud is shown on 
the charts, there are most unquestionably rocks also, as was too plainly indi- 
cated by the state of the cable, rock weed and sea animalcules adhering to 
and surrounding it in many places, showing that it had been suspended clear 
of the bottom. The cabie was invariably hauled in by hand to avoid unneces- 
sary strain. The recovered cable varied in condition very much, and what 
is most important is, that even those portions which came out of the black 
mud were so perished in numerous patches that the outer covering parted on 
board, during the process of hauling in, and but for the dexterity and cour- 
age of the men in seizing hold of it beyond the break, where the iron wires 
stuck out like bunches of highly-sharpened needle points, we should not have 
known so much of its condition. In a word, it was evidently sometimes em- 
bedded in mud, sometimes on small stones, sometimes half embedded, and 
sometimes wholly exposed over rocks, as was apparent from the condition of 
the outer covering. The iron wires in many places often appeared sound, but, 
on minute inspection, were found eaten away and rotten; the sewing was also 
decayed. In some places the iron wires were coated with metallic copper, and 
much eaten, they having most probably rested upon copper ore, for there are 
veins of it in Trinity Bay. The gutta percha and copper wire are, however, 
in as good condition as when laid down. 

The general ragged, precipitous, and rocky character of the surrounding 

11* 


126 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


land evidently extends below the surface of the water; the unevenness of 
our soundings and condition of the cable indicate this most plainly. We 
accordingly decided upon leaving the neighborhood of Bull’s Island alto- 
gether, as the cable in its present state at that part of the bay will not repay 
the cost of recovery. We agreed simultaneously to attempt to raise the 
cable off Heart’s Content, and ascertain its condition there; this being the 
most promising part of the bay, from the information we have been able to 
collect. Accordingly, on the 1st of July, we sailed to this locality, and grap- 
nelled for the cable in smooth water. We finally hooked it, in one hundred 
and forty-three fathoms water, some four times or more. It sometimes 
lifted off the ground before parting as much as forty fathoms, sometimes 
only fifteen; in no instance did it come near the surface of the water. On 
two occasions the iron strands of the cable left most unmistakable impres- 
sions on the grapnel, and iron rust, resembling that usually found on the 
cable, adhered to its claws. The bottom consisted of green mud and light- 
colored clay, the latter very compact, and in consistency not much unlike 
the blue clay of London; some parts of the bottom were of stone. 

Having found it quite impossible to raise the cable, we concluded, after 
careful consideration, to make a last, but hopeless, trial at the mouth of 
Trinity Bay, and if unsuccessful to take the steamer and men to St. John’s, 
to avoid further expense. On July 3d, the steamer reached Break Heart 
Point, a little before 44.mM. We grapnelled for the cable from about six 
and a half miles off, in one hundred and sixty-five fathoms water, to within 
one and a half miles of the point, where the water was still over one hundred 
fathoms. We did not succeed in finding it; and had we done so, the Atlantic 
roll setting into the bay was so heavy, and the,.current running out so strong, 
that we could not possibly have raised it to the surface, but only have deter- 
mined its position. It is quite possible that the cable was hooked without 
being perceived by us, owing to the depth of water, and to the fact that the 
cable, especially where laid over stone, is very rotten. At six miles out, the 
bottom consisted of clay covered by a thin stratum of mud. At about 
four and a half or five miles off, the bottom appeared to consist of stones, 
and this continued to within one and a half miles of the, “ point,” 
where the water was very deep. Those portions of the recovered cable 
that were wrapped with tarred yarn were sound, the tar.and hemp having 
preserved the iron wires bright and free from rust. This will be further 
reported on when the pieces of recovered cable have been more closely 
examined. 


ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHING. 


The unfortunate failure of the Atlantic Telegraph, with its long series of 
mistakes and miscalculaiions, has exercised, and still to a certain extent 
continues to exercise, a depressing influence upon all important schemes for 
submarine telegraphic communication. We can scarcely say that confidence 
in the working practicability of any Atlantic telegraph whatever, submerged 
along the old deep-sea route, has yet been established, while, regarding such 
a scheme merely in the light of an investment, a commercial speculation 
by which money is to be made, we need not remark how, at the present time, 
even the best inaugurated enterprise of the kind would soon have the grief 
of seeing its shares at half discount, unless the most rigid and practised 
caution was exercised both in the choice of route and choice of cable. In 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 137 


the meantime, during the stagnation that has engulfed all such projected 
schemes since the Atlantic cable was designed and lost, a great reform in 
the method of constructing submarine ropes has been going steadily forward. 
The old self-destructive principle of ponderous iron coils for deep-sea wires 
has been so generally abandoned, that a proposition for now reverting to 
their use across a sea of any length or depth would not be entertained for a 
moment by telegraphic engineers. To be sure, this change, which of course 
was, and still is, fiereely opposed by some of the wire ropemakers, has not 
been brought about till the credulity and patience of shareholders were at 
an end, and until the bottom of the Mecliterranean and other seas had been 
fruitlessly adorned with three or four of those leviathan coils, — enduring 
monuments of our commercial enterprise, and of our mechanical ignorance 
also. Since that period—only four years ago, though marking an age in 
the infant science of telegraphy — opinions have undergone a most impor- 
tant change, and both contractors and engineers now often lean so strongly 
to very light cables, that the idea, like all good ideas, is in danger of being 
led into extremes, and we may see as much public money lost in trying to 
submerge cobwebs as was ever dragged down “fathoms deep,” even by 
those expensive wire covered cables, big enough and heavy enough to moor 
an island. The results of this great alteration in the weight and strength of 
cables are likely soon to be practically tested on the most extensive scale, by 
the proportionate success or non-success of some cables which are now 
being manufactured in England. One is about the very lightest cable of its 
kind that has ever been made at all, always excepting the gutta-percha 
covered copper wire which was stretched across’the Black Sea to Balaklava. 
The other is to be a well proportioned ‘‘ composite’ cable, heavy and 
very massive, perhaps far too much _so in some parts; in others, where it 
is proposed to be sunk some three miles down, it is, if not quite a light 
rope, still, with regard to lightness, an important example in the right 
direction. 

The first mentioned extremely light cable, which will weigh less than 
three hundredweight per mile in water, is about being constructed at the 
Electric Cable Company’s works, Milwall. The heavier, and we must also 
say the more expensively proportioned, rope is in progress of manufacture 
at Glass & Elliot’s for the English government, and will, it is hoped, unite 
England with Gibraltar. In this cable all questions of cost have been con+ 
sidered at the treasury as entirely subordinate to procuring the very best 
workmanship and material,—the highest conditions of mechanical and 
electrical excellence which it is possible to secure by money, toil, or inge- 
nuity. The direct route from England to Gibraltar would, for the most part, 
lie through what in telegraphic works would be called deep water, —the | 
route from Brest to Finisterre, and so on round the coast of Portugal, at a 
comparatively short distance from land, averaging on the whole either one 
thousand or more than one thousand fathoms. But in this cable (as should 
have been the case with every one that has ever been made) the contract 
with Glass & Elliot is not only for its manufacture on a certain plan, but for 
submerging it successfully. The depth of water in which it will ultimately 
be laid will therefore, doubtless, rest in a great measure with the contractors ; 
subject, of course, to certain conditions of the government, that it shall be 
sunk in water deep enough to keep it out of the reach of any enemy, either 
to raise or to break. The latter consideration is, of course, one of the last 
importance; since only in war time will attempts be made to injure it, and 


128 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in war time, above all others, its services would be absolutely indispensable 
to the country. 

Before the form, weight, strength, and outer covering of each portion cf 
the cable were resolved on, the Board of Trade took the utmost pains, by 
consulting our chief electricians, to ascertain the kinds best suited for the 
purpose and for long endurance under water. Researches into these matters 
have led to the adoption of a cable of different thicknesses, weights, and 
strengths, according as the depth of the water under which it will be laid 
increases; the whole forming one continued submarine rope, which, if not 
perfect in its mechanical arrangement, is nevertheless one which holds out 
high prospects of ultimate success. The core or conductor is, of course, of 
the same thickness and formation throughout from end to end, being formed 
of seven No. 18 copper wires, in all about one-eighth of an inch diameter — 
the thickest conductor that has ever yet been made. The copper strands of 
this, in accordance with the advice of the electricians, have been very care- 
fully selected and tested for conducting power, as even the purest copper 
wire, from some unknown cause, has been found to vary in electrical con- 
ducting power as much as forty per cent. Its power of conducting heat also 
diminishes or increases in the same proportion with its electrical sensitive- 
ness. Yet, though the conductor with its insulating medium of gutta-percha 
is alike in diameter throughout, the manner in which this core is protected, 
or, we had better say, the thickness to which the outer covering is laid on, 
differs considerably. Thus, each of the two shore ends is made to rest in 
from 100 to 200 fathoms, and these for thirty knots each way are very 
massive, at the rate in weight of seven tons to the mile. The next length 
at each end is also of thirty knots, and will rest in from 200 to 400 fathoms 
water, and is for this depth a very massive cable, weighing about five tons 
to the mile. By the substitution of a finer gauge of wire at each two or 
three miles or so, this gradually tapers down to meet the first deep-sea 
length, which will be laid in from 500 to 800, or, possibly, even 1,000 fathoms. 
The length of this portion of the cable is 940 nautical miles, its weight in 
air two tons per mile, in water about thirty-four hundredweight. The deepest 
deep-sea portion — across the centre of the Bay of Biscay —extends over 
about 280 knots, though 360 knots are being manufactured to meet contin- 
gencies in submerging. Here the depth averages about 2,500 fathoms, — 
equal to the very deepest parts of the cable plateau of the North Atlantic. 
To overcome the difficulties of this vast depth of water, the cable is 
strengthened by the introduction of steel wire in its outer covering, and 
reduced to weigh in air only twenty-six hundredweight; in water as low as 
thirteen. The weight of the Atlantic cable in air was one ton, and in water 

about fifteen or sixteen hundredweight, per mile. 

' The different weights of the different parts of the cable are, of course, 
entirely due to the thickness of the outer spiral wires with which it is covered. 
The conductor, with its threefold insulation of gutta-percha, is all served 
round alike with yarns of tarred hemp closely bound in, and over which 
come the outer wires of various gauges: No. 1 gauge, the thickest known, 
being as thick as a cedar pencil, and so on up to No. 45 gauge, as fine as 
cotton. The two heaviest shore ends, then, of thirty miles each, are covered 
with twelve No. 3 gauge wires, which brings its weight up to seven tons a 
mile, and its breaking strain from twenty-five to thirty tons. The second 
land ends are enclosed in twelve No. 5 gauge wires, of five tons to the mile, 
and equal to about fifteen tons’ strain. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 


The first deep-sea length, of about nine hundred and fifty miles, for from 
five to eight hundred fathoms, is covered, like the Atlantic cable, with 
eighteen No. 11 gauge solid iron wires, weighing two tons the mile in air, 
thirty-three hundredweight in water, and equal to a strain of nearly eight 
tons. The deepest sea part is enclosed in twelve steel wires of No. 14 gauge, 
each wire being spun round and enclosed in a separate strand of hemp, in 
order, if possible, to take off that dangerous springiness and tendency to 
kink which makes all steel-wire rope, even when coiled, so lively, and so 
much resembling a cargo of live eels. The cable, the chief points of which 
we have thus described, is necessarily a most expensive one; for, as we have 
already stated, the government have contracted that all parts of the material 
and workmanship should be of the finest possible kind. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all the care that has been taken to secure a good 
rope, and the improvement which, with regard to strength with a certain 
amount of lightness, the deep-sea portion of this cable undoubtedly displays, 
it is still, we are sorry to say, constructed on the old self-destructive principle 
of spiral iron wires round a soft core,—one of the most faulty mechanical 
arrangements that could have been attempted. There is not a single engi- 
neer of eminence who does not condemn the principle of laying on the out- 
side wires spirally, instead of longitudinally, in a line with the strain they 
have to resist. Why the old arrangement is persisted in at the present day 
it is difficult to imagine, unless it is due to the fact that most of the wire- 
rope manufacturers have their machines constructed for laying on the wires 

spirally, and do not: care to make others which will render the completion 
of their work slower, more difficult, and less profitable. Four years ago, 
when the plan of construction of the Atlantic cable was resolved on, we most 
strongly deprecated this arrangement, and the event has so elealy justified 
what we then pointed out would be the consequences, that we may be excused 
for quoting the opinion on the present occasion :— 

“Whenever a cable is constructed with spiral wires round a soft core, any 
severe strain in paying it out must, by stretching the outside wires, either 
attenuate or break the insulation of the copper conductor. This is a simple 
fact, which those least conversant with mechanics can easily understand. 
We do not mean to say that the Atlantic cable cannot succeed, but the 
chances are very much against it; and it is certain that before it has been 
down twelve months it will, like most others similarly constructed, be per- 
fectly useless. If it does answer even temporarily, it will not be due to the 
plan on which it is made, but in spite of it.” 

We shall, on another occasion, inform our readers of the chief principles 
on, which the light cable before mentioned is being constructed, and the 
prospects which cables of that description hold out of being successful when 
laid. All that we have at present to add with regard to the Gibraltar cable is, 
that the contractors undertake to submerge it at their own risk and expense; 
and to insure proper fulfilment of this portion of their task, the government 
very wisely retain five per cent of the price of the whole cable (which is 
nearly £300,000) in their own hands, and further compel Messrs. Glass and 
Elliot to give security to the amount of £20,000 that the rope shall be suc- 
cessfully laid. It is proposed to submerge it in two equal portions — one 
from Gibraltar to Cape Finisterre, and one from Finisterre to (we hope) the 
southwest coast of Ireland. It is anticipated that the whole rope will be laid 
early in 1861.— London Times. 


130 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS. 


Several improvements in the operation of the Morse telegraph have re- 
cently been completed in England. One by the brothers Digney marks the 
characters with ink, instead of simple indentation in the paper. This is a 
relief to the eyes of the operator, and an additional guaranty of accuracy. 
This is accomplished by making immovable the instrument for tracing, which 
is a simple desk turning upon itself; the lever, moved by electricity, has no 
other function than to press the paper against the desk at divers intervals 
and for different lengths of time. By a clockwork movement this little desk 
rubs constantly against an elastic roller saturated with a fat ink, which long 
preserves its fluidity, so that it suffices to put a few drops of it every two or 
three days on the surface of the roller. This improvement has been adopted 
on the lines in France and Belgium. Mr. Wheatstone, of England, has also 
invented a convenient process for increasing the speed of transmission by 
the Morse instrument, similar to a process for the same purpose connected 
with the Bain instrument. A prepared paper is punched with holes corres- 
ponding to the Morse characters, and the message thus prepared is placed on 
a moving metallic band, and is made to take the place of an operator and 
transmit itself. 

L. Bradley, of New York, has patented an improvement in telegraphing by 
sound, by which he dispenses with the local batteries of the House system. 
The magnet and armature are placed in the main circuit, and by a simple 
combination of sounding-board and overstrung wires the indistinct tick is 
expanded to a clear, sharp, and perfectly intelligible knock, which the ope- 
rator can follow with perfect ease and certainty. Each knock is loud and 
abrupt, and there is not the slightest liability of running them together, 
however rapid the manipulations of the operator. 


MAGNETISM AND THE MOON. 


At the American Association, 1860, Professor Bache presented a paper on 
the attempt, from observations at Girard College, to determine the effect of 
the moon upon the daily movements of the magnetic needle. The observa- 
tions and calculations of European magnetic observers have shown that 
such an effect is produced. The Philadelphia observations were divided into 
three groups, and the curves of each group were found to agree with each 
other, and with the results of General Sabine and others. Fourteen minutes 
after the moon is on the meridian, the needle is eighteen-hundredths of a 
minute westerly of its position, and six minutes after the moon passes the 
lower meridian, twenty-three hundredths of a minute west; while about 
moon-rise and moon-set the needle is nearly as much east of its position. 
There is also a slight single movement between two successive culminations 
of the moon, just as there is a daily, as well as a semi-daily, lunar tide in the 
ocean. Further examinations show a greater effect of the moon in summer 
than in winter. Moreover, it appears that the effect is probably greater at 
new moon than at full, and greater when the moon is north of the equator 
than when south. The effect when the moon is near the earth is greater 
than when she is at a greater distance. But it must be remembered that all 
these effects are exceedingly small. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. © ea 


ON FIXING MAGNETIC PHANTOMS. 


The name “phantom” was given by M. de Haldatto the figures which are 
obtained when iron-filings are thrown upon a sheet of paper or a pane of 
glass placed over a magnet. This physicist fixed these images by producing 
them upon a sheet of paper coated with starch or prepared with gelatine. 

This process certainly enables us to obtain the general form of the phan- 
toms; but all physicists can see that it suppresses the details. I therefore pro- 
pose another method, which is very simple, and succeeds perfectly. The 
paper upon which the phantoms are to be fixed is “ waxed” paper. <A sheet 
of this is placed over the poles of the magnet in question, and kept in a hori- 
zontal position by means of a screen placed between the paper and the mag- 
net. Then, proceeding in the usual manner, when the image is fully devel- 
oped, a hot brick is held above it, or the warm lid of a crucible, which is 
preferable, because it is lighter and easily managed with the tongs. They 
must not touch the paper, but only be brought within the distance necessary 
to fuse the wax. As soon as this happens, which is easily perceived by the 
glistening appearance produced, the brick is withdrawn. Meanwhile the 
current does not cease its activity, nor the filings lose their arrangement, in 
which position the whole solidifies so well that the fixed image does not at 
all differ from the phantom of the magnet in activity. Permanence is thus 
given to the sort of molecular arrangement which the filings take when ex- 
posed to magnetic influence. Instruction can hardly fail to be derived from 
the use of these means, by aid of which it will be possible to study the fig- 
ures more advantageously, which are, in some sense, the visible expression 
of the force animating bodies endowed with polarity developed by mag- 
netism. — Professor J. Nickles, Silliman’s Journal. 


ELECTRIC AND CALORIFIC CONDUCTION OF METALS. 


Messrs. Calvert and Johnson, after numerous experiments, have arrived at 
the conclusion that the electric and calorific conduction — powers of conduct- 
ing heat and electricity — are proportional to each other in alloys as well as 
in simple metals; and that these powers are exhibited by the alloys of cop- 
per and zinc in a degree which differs little from that of zinc, whatever amount 
of copper they may contain. The rapidity with which the conduction of 
copper is reduced is very remarkable. Thus pure copper conducts electricity 
with a facility represented by the figures 73.6, and heat with one represented 
by 79.3; but when eight parts of copper are alloyed with one part of zinc, 
the conductibility for electricity is reduced to 27.3, and for heat to 25.5; that 
of zine alone being for the former 28.1, and for the latter 27.3. The con- 
ductibility of alloys of tin and bismuth is nearly the mean of that of the 
component metals. 


ON THE CONSERVATION OF FORCE. 


Professor Faraday, in a recently published volume, entitled “‘ Experimen- 
tal Researches in Chemistry and Physics,’ adds to his former expressed 
opinions, in relation to the conservation of force,! the following additional 
remarks : — 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1858, pp. 177-189. 


e- ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Since the first publication of certain opinions respecting gravitation, etc., 
I have come to the knowledge of various observations upon them, some 
adverse, others favorable: these have given me no reason to change my own 
mode of viewing the subject; but some of them make me think that I have 
not stated the matter with sufficient precision. The word “ foree” is under- 
stood by many to mean simply “‘ the tendency of a body to pass from one 
place to another,’ which is equivalent, I suppose, to the phrase ‘‘ mechanical 
force.” Those who so restrain its meaning must have found my argument 
very obscure. What I mean by the word “force,” is the cause of a physical 
action; the source or sources of all possible changes amongst the particles 
or materials of the universe. 

It seems to me that the idea of the conservation of force is absolutely in- 
dependent of any notion we may form of the nature of force or its varieties, 
and is as sure, and may be as firmly held in the mind, as if we, instead of 
being very ignorant, understood perfectly every point about the cause of 
force and the varied effects it can produce. There may be perfectly distinct 
and separate causes of what are called chemical actions, or electrical actions, 
or gravitating actions, constituting so many forces; but if the ‘‘ conservation 
of force” is a good and true principle, each of these forces must be subject 
to it: none can vary in its absolute amount; each must be definite at all 
times, whether for a particle, or for all the particles in the universe; and the 
sum also of the three forces must be equally unchangeable. Or, there may 
be but one cause for these three sets of actions, and in place of three forces 
we may really have but one, convertible in its manifestations; then the pro- 
portions between one set of actions and another, as the chemical and the elec- 
trical, may become very variable, so as to be utterly inconsistent with the idea 
of the conservation of two separate forces, — the electrical and the chemical, 
—but perfectly consistent with the conservation of a force being the com- 
mon cause of two or more sets of action. 

It is perfectly true that we cannot always trace a force by its actions, 
though we admit its conservation. Oxygen and hydrogen may remain 
mixed for years without showing any signs of chemical activity; they may 
be made at any given instant to exhibit active resuits, and then assume a 
new state, in which again they appear as passive bodies. Now, though we 
cannot clearly explain what the chemical force is doing, that is to say, what 
are its effects during the three periods before, at, and after the active combi- 
nation, and only by very vague assumption can approach to a feeble concep- 
fion of its respective states, yet we do not suppose the creation of a new 
portion of force for the active moment of time, or the less believe that the 
forces belonging to the oxygen and hydrogen exist unchanged in their 
amount at all these periods, though varying in their results. A part may at 
the active moment be thrown off as mechanical force, a part as radiant force, 
a part disposed of we know not how; but believing, by the principle of con- 
servation, that it is not increased or destroyed, our thoughts are directed to 
search out what, at all and every period, it is doing, and how it is to be recog- 
nized and measured. A problem, founded on the physical truth of nature, 
is stated, and, being stated, is on the way to its solution. 

Those who admit the possibility of the common origin of all physical 
force, and also acknowledge the principle of conservation, apply that princi- 
ple to the sum total of the force. Thouzh the amount of mechanical force 
(using habitual language for convenience’ sake) may remain unchanged 
and definite in its character for a long time, yet when, as in the collision of 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. iaa 


two equal inelastic bodies, it appears to be lost, they find it in the form of 
heat; and whether they admit that heat to be a continual mechanical action, 
—as is most probable, —or assume some other idea, as that of electricity, or 
action of a heat-fluid, still they hold to the principle of conservation, by ad- 
mitting that the sum of force, that is, of the “ cause of action,” is the same 
whatever character the effects assume. With them the convertibility of heat, 
electricity, magnetism, chemical action, and motion, is a familiar thought; 
neither can I perceive any reason why they should be led to exclude, @ priori, 
the cause of gravitation from association with the cause of these other plie- 
nomena respectively. All that they are limited by in their various investi- 
gations, whatever directions they may take, is the necessity of making no 
assumption directly contradictory of the conservation of force applied to the 
sum of all the forces concerned, and to endeavor to discover the different 
directions in which the various parts of the total force have been exerted. 

Those who admit separate forces inter-unchangeable, have to show that 
each of these forces is separately subject to the principle of conservation. 
If gravitation be such a separate force, and yet its power in the action of two 
particles be supposed to be diminished fourfold, by doubling the distance, 
surely some new action, having true gravitation character, and that alone, 
ought to appear; for how else can the totality of the force remain unchanged ? 
To define the force “‘as a simple attractive force exerted between any two or 
all the particles of matter, with a strength varying inversely as the square of 
the distance,” is not to answer the question; nor does it indicate, or even 
assume, what are the other complementary results which occur, or allow the 
supposition that such are necessary: it is simply, as it appears to me, to deny 
the conservation of force. 

As to the gravitating force, I do not presume to say that I have the least 
idea of what occurs in two particles when their power of mutually approach- 
ing each other is changed by their being placed at different distances; but I 
have a strong conviction, through the influence on my mind of the doctrine 
of conservation, that there is a change; and that the phenomena resulting 
from the change will probably appear some day as the result of careful 
research. If it be said that ‘‘’twere to consider too curiously to consider 
so,” then I must dissent: to refrain to consider would be to ignore the prin- 
ciple of the conservation of force, and to stop the inquiry which it suggests; 
whereas, to admit the proper logical force of the principle in our hypotheses 
and considerations, and to permit its guidance in a cautious yet courageous 
course of investiga*ion, may give us power to enlarge the generali‘ies we 
already possess in respect of heat, mo’‘ion, electricity, magnetism, etc., to 
associate gravity with them, and, perhaps, enable us to know whether the 
essential force of gravitation (and other attractions) is internal or external, as 
respects the attracted bodies. 

Returning once more to the definition of the gravitating power as “a sim- 
ple attractive force exerted between any two or all the pariicles or masses of 
matter at every sensible distance, but with a strength varying inversely as the 
square of the distance,’ I ought, perhaps, to suppose there are many who 
accept this as a true and sufficient description of the force, and who, there- 
fore, in relation to if, deny the principle of conservation. If both are ac- 
cepted, and are thought to be consistent with each other, it cannot be difficulé 
to add words which shall make “varying strength” and “ conservation” 
agree together. It cannot be said that the definition merely applies to the 
effects of gravitation as far as we know them. So understood, it would form 

12 


134 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


no barrier to progress; for that particles at different distances are urged to- 
wards each other with a power varying inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance is a truth; but the definition has not that meaning; and what I object 
to is the pretence of knowledge which the definition sets up when it assumes 
to describe, not the partial effects of the force, but the nature of the force as 
a whole. 


THE CORRELATION AND HOMOGENESIS OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 


The following article, written by L’Abbé Moigno, was recently published 
in the London Photographic News : — 

All the forces of nature— motion, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, 
chemical affinity — have intimate relations or correlations with each other. 
These forces engender each other; so that, one being given, we can, by put- 
ting it into action, produce all the others. This generation or homogenesis 
of the various forces by each other takes place in definite proportions, or 
according to the law of fixed equivalents; so that the quantity of any one 
of these forces expended in the act of generating another force is always 
represented by a corresponding quantity of the force engendered. Thus, for 
example, if, to create a mechanical force, we expend, without loss, the 
quantity of heat necessary to raise a kilogramme of water one degree of 
heat, the mechanical force produced will be capable of raising, in a second 
of time, 427 kilogrammes to the height of a meter; and reciprocally, if, to 
produce one degree of heat, we expend the force capable of raising a meter 
in height, in one second, a weight of 427 kilogrammes, the quantity of heat 
engendered will be that necessary to communicate, and will suffice to com- 
municate to a liter of water one degree of temperature. M. de Beaumont’s 
machine admirably demonstrates this fundamental principle, which will 
receive its full development when science shall have become able to define 
and accurately determine the mechanical, thermal, photogenic, electric, mag- 
netic, and synergic equivalents as clearly and accurately as it has arrived 
at determining the chemical equivalents of various simple and compound 
substances. 

But this is not all. In making another step in advance, we have estab- 
lished, as a certain proposition, that the generation or homogenesis of the 
various forces of nature is accomplished by a real transformation of one 
into another; so that, for example, heat, under given conditions, is trans- 
formed into a motive power, into light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical 
affinity; or, rather, becomes motive power, light, electricity, magnetism, and 
chemical affinity. The beautiful experiment of Faraday, completed and 
fully developed by Foucault, of a cube submitted to rapid motion becoming 
hot when this motion suddenly stopped, is the sufficient and certain demon- 
stration of the transformation of the quantity of motion into the quantity 
of heat—a transformation regulated by the principle of equivalents. At 
length we arrive at the theory or metaphysical reason of these intimate 
relations of the homogenesis, of these mutual generations or transmissions, 
always obeying the laws of equivalents. Our profound conviction is, that 
Mr. Grove and M. Seguin are perfectly correct when they assert that in 
nature there are only two things, matter and motion; matter under two 
forms, and submitted to the law of universal attraction; motion once itn- 
pressed on matter, which cannot augment either in.its quantity or in the 
sum of its active forces, which may be successively transformed and 
modified. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 135 


When a ray of lizht falls upon_a daguerreotype plate, forming part of a 
galvanic circuit, which includes a galvanometer and Breguet’s metallic ther- 
mometer, there is instantaneously and simultaneously produced chemical 
affinity on the surface of the plate, an electric current in the galvanometer, 
an elevation of temperature in the thermometer, motion in the two needles 
of the galvanometer and thermometer, etc. As a concrete and striking 
example of homogenesis, we may instance what we will term the human 
machine, that masterpiece of creative power. It is sustained solely, first by 
alimentary provision, composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and assimi- 
lative mineral principles, then by atmospheric air introduced by respiration. 
The vital phenomenon, par excellence, is the combustion of carbon and 
hydrogen by the oxygen of the atmosphere—a combustion which, it ap- 
pears to us, is summed up in a first disengagement, in a first motion, in a 
first circulation. Now, observe to what this first motion gives birth: a very 
intense heat, which maintains our whole body, even in winter, at a temper- 
ature of ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit; an electric or nervous current, of 
which M. Helmholtz has established the existence and measured the velocity ; 
the circulation of the blood in the entire system of arteries and veins; a 
mechanical force sufficient to transport the entire body which, upon an 
average, weighs 160 pounds, with a velocity of several yards per second; 
the muscular force exercised by the various organs, which make of an active 
man one of the strongest animals in creation; chemical affinity, under a 
thousand different forms, with the very complex series of combinations and 
decompositions, assimilations and secretions, etc.: evidently, this is not only 
the correlation of physical forces, it is also their homogenesis, their mutual 
transformation, their identity in cause and also in nature, etc. 


NEW COSMICAL FORCE. 


Jacobi, of St. Petersburg, well known to the scientific world for his fine 
researches on light and magnetism, has recently thrown out some remark- 
able ideas on the necessity of introducing into calculations of the planetary 
system a new force, besides gravitation, namely, ¢nduction. The numerous 
practical applications of the remarkable force, electro-magnetism, he says, 
have rather pushed out of sight the vast importance of the discovery in a 
purely scientific point of view, and observes that he has no scruple in 
placing it by the side of gravitation as a force in celestial mechanics. Here 
are a few of the most intelligible links in his chain of reasoning: All bodies 
are magnetic to a greater or less degree; the earth is a vast magnet, and it 
is doubtless the same with other planets and their satellites, and even with 
the sun himself. Now it is a general law, and also a fact proved by every- 
day experience, that when two bodies, both permeated by magnetic currents, 
approach or recede from each other, their approach or their recession gene- 
rates contrary currents of induction. And it is these currents of induction, 
with their consecutive and perturbative attractions or repulsions, that he 
proposes to introduce into the explanation of the phenomena of celestial 
mechanics. 


INFLUENCE OF LIGHT IN GRAVITATION. 


The following is an abstract of an essay on the above subject, by Dr. Wm. 
S. Green, of Muscogee County, Georgia: — 
1. It is argued that gravitation is an action of contiguous atoms of matter, 


135 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


impressible by light. 2. That the velocity of motion of these atoms toward 
each other is a measure of the force of gravity. 3. That the velocity of 
these moving atoms is equal to the velocity of light. 

It is further argued that the force of gravity makes angles and surfaces on 
the earth, coinciding with those of light from the sun; and that, like light, it 
is modified by the density and masses of matter through which it passes. 
The mean direction of the solar force on the earth must be toward that 
point which would indicate the place of its mean weight. This must be at 
the centre of gyration, since that is the point at which, if all the matter were 
collected, it would revolve with the same velocity. According to Mr. Farey, 
the distance of the centre of gyration from the centre of motion, in a solid 
sphere revolving about one of its diameters as an axis, is found by multi- 
plying its radius into .6325 decimal. The earth’s radius being 3956 miles, 
when multiplied by .6325 gives 2502 miles, as the distance of the centre cf 
gyration in the earth from the centre of motion. 

All the matter of the earth’s surface lying within the parallels 54° 267 
north and south of the equator, has its gravity diminished by the action of 
the sun, and increased beyond them to the poles. Gummere, in his work on 
Astronomy, chap. Xvit. 70, estimates the angle of diminished gravity at the 
earth’s surface produced by solar action at 55°. 

If the whole surface of the earth is represented by unity, then that surface 
embraced between the parallels of 23° 27’ 54/” wiil be represented by .398125 
decimal. These surfaces are in the ratio of spheres of matter, the relative 
masses of which are as 1 to .25 decimal, and the diameters of which are as 
1 to .631 decimal. The above masses are in the ratio of the relative densities 
of the sun and earth; and the diameters are in the ratio of radius to the 
distance from the centre of gyration to the earth’s centre. These numbers 
also represent the relative velocity of the extremes of decomposed solar 
light, the number of red undulations in an inch being .37640, while that of 
the violet undulations is .59750 in an inch. Considering the earth as a sphe- 
roid, they also represent the velocity of the earth’s rotation at the equator, 
and at the parallels of 54° 26’; or the extremes of the solar force on the earth’s 
surface. 

The planets are supposed to be collections of atoms of matter in motion. 
The force of their gravity toward each other, and consequently to the sun, 
ought to be known by the velocity of their atomic motion toward each other. 
Hence, their distances from the sun ought to be inversely proportional to their 
densities. The following shorter process of Kepler’s Third Law gives the 
inverse ratio of velocities, which squared gives the distance of the planets: 


Mercury, AE days = 4.772 ratio 0.625 3 oi .38906 
Venus, W/, 222.700 “= 6.080 “« 0.850 7 3 3 7225 
Earth, (0/305.56 «= 7.48 « 1000f 73 1.0000 
Mars, 68 979 * — 87g «9 [oe Ne ge) eee 
Jupiter, “9/4332.584 « — 16.209 « 2081 / ES 5.2099 
Saturn, 84/ 10759.219 = 22176 “s 2.0a8 $i = 9.5337 
Uranus, *n/30685.520 “ — 31.309 4.350 z ° 19.1844 
Neptune, “4/60127.000 “ = 39.198 « 5.483 / & %° 30,0692 


If the earth’s true distance, found from the above figures, be divided by 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 137 


the distances of the other planets, we have the ratio of densities; which 
coincide very nearly with the densities given by Laplace, in the third column. 


Distances. Density. goat from 

Miles. Ko] aplace. 
Mercury, 370,674 Ss 2 2.560 2.585 
Venus, 685,598 5%, 1.384 1.024 
Earth, 948,925 ya 1.000 1.000 
Mars, 1,444,982 22 687 655 
Jupiter, 4,937,228 Eis 192 201 
Saturn, 9037122 2 104 103 
Uranus, 18,204,570 =g 2 052 218 
Neptune, 28,527,828 m 087 ae 


In Biot’s Astronomy the density of Mercury, resulting from the diameter 
and mass there given, is 3.097; but in the author from whom Olmsted copies, 
it is put down as 1.12. Laplace is between them. 

It has been shown that the square roots of the distances of the planets are 
inversely proportional to their velocity of revolution. Hence, the nearer a 
planet approaches the sun, its velocity is more and more increased. At the 
distance of one mile, therefore, from the sun, the velocity of the earth’s revo- 
lution around it would be nineteen miles per second, multiplied by the square 
root of 94832572 miles, which equals 19 x 9744 = 185136 miles per second, 
which ts very nearly the estimated velocity of light. The atoms of terrestrial mat- 
ter, therefore, if placed at the surface of the sun, would have a motion equal 
to the velocity of solar light. 

If the resistance of atoms of matter retards the velocity of light and modi- 
fies the force of gravity, the amount of such retardation ought to be in 
some ratio with the number of atoms, or masses of the planets. It is found 
that the sixth roots of the masses represent this retardation. The times of 
rotation of the planets, therefore, should be in the ratio of the square roots 
of the cube roots, that is, the sixth roots of the masses. 


Mass. Ratio. Times of rotation. 
Mercury, “Ne ~ 3465 = ef tol: 33 25 09 
Venus, Sn/ 1.82138 = 1.948 “ 22 55 57 
Earth, Se/ 1.00000 = 1.000 * 24 00 00 
Mars, Sn/ 12535 == «707 “ 88 54 28 
Jupiter, Sn /272.77282 = 2.546 9 23 00 
Saturn, ®x/103.48990 = 2.169 “ 11 07 00 
Uranus, © /4.49940 = 1.270 “ 18 45 00 


Neptune,  °/221111 = 1.147 “ 20 56 32 


GROWTH OF A CRYSTAL. 


Mr. Nevil Story Maskelyne, in a paper read by him to the Royal Institution, 
*“ On the Insight hitherto obtained into the nature of the Crystal Molecule by 
the instrumentality of Light,” in conclusion, says: — 
In every case the growth of a erystal is an inexplicable thing, so long as 
we endeavor to trace its cause to powers residing in, and confined to, the 
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158 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


molecules. A erystal, like a plant, is developed in a medium; and as the 
plant owes the special peculiarities of its individual form, notwithstanding 
the seemingly perfect freedom of its growth, to special circumstances in the 
soil, the air, the weather, during that growth; and its general similarity to 
other plants of its kind, to the organic laws that control the conditions of its 
species; so must the crystal be considered as the result of many cooperating 
influences, including those of the foreign constituents of the mother liquid, 
those of temperature and other physical conditions, and involving the prin- 
ciple that the molecules, whether those deposited, or those about to become 
so, affect or are affected by — and that to considerable distances —the whole 
of the formed and forming crystal matter. 

It would be as useless to expect to explain the growth of a crystal without 
some such view as this, as to endeavor to account for the growth or outward 
form of a particular plant by the development of a single leaf. 


CURIOUS NUMERICAL RELATIONS. 


Col. James, R. E., in a communication to the London Atheneum, points 
out the following curious relations of numbers : — 

The length of a solar year is 365.242 days. The length of a degree of 
longitude at the equator, taken from the printed Geodetical Tables of the 
British Ordnance Survey, is 365,234 feet; so that if the length of a degree at 
the equator is divided by the number of days in the year, it will give 1,000 
feet, or, more exactly, 999.977 feet, which would give the foot within one 
thousandth part of an inch, a quantity which cannot be seen. 

Again, the length of a degree of latitude at the central point of the British 
Islands is 365,242 feet, and the length of a degree of latitude, measured on 
that parallel, divided by the number of days in the year, gives exactly 1,000 
feet. 

There is no connection between the number of days in a year and the 
number of feet in a degree of latitude or longitude; but after a lapse of a few 
thousand vears, the scientific traveller from New Zealand may pay us the 
same compliment which some of our scientific travellers are now paying the 
Egyptians, and attribute to scientific refinement that which is simply a 
curious accidental agreement in the numbers. 


DYNAMICS OF GASES. 


The following is an abstract of a paper presented to the British Association, 
“On the Dynamical Theory of Gases,” by Professor C. Maxwell. The phe- 
nomena of the expansion of gases by heat, and their compression by 
pressure, have been explained by Joule, Claussens, Herepath, etc., by the 
theory of their particles being in a state of rapid motion, the velocity depend- 
ing on the temperature. These particles must not only strike against the 
sides of the vessel, but against each other, and the calculation of their 
motions is therefore complicated. The author has established the following 
results: —1. The velocities of the particles are not uniform, but vary, so that 
they deviate from the mean value by a law well known in the “ method of 
least squares.”” 2. Two different sets of particles will distribute their veloci- 
ties, so that their vires vive will be equal; and this leads to the chemical law, 
that the equivalents of gases are proportional to their specific gravities. 3. 
From Professor Stokes’s experiments on friction in air, it appears that the 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 139 


distance travelled by a particle between consecutive collisions is about 
za7oo0 Of an inch, the mean velocity being about 1,505 feet per second; 
and therefore each particle makes 8,077,200,000 collisions per second. 4. 
The laws of the diffusion of gases, as established by Professor Graham, Jr., 
are deduced from this theory, and the absolute rate of diffusion through an 
opening can be calculated. The author intends to apply his mathematical 
methods to the explanation on this hypothesis of the propagation of sound, 
and expects some light on the mysterious question of the absolute number 
of such particles in a given mass. 


COLOR-BLINDNESS. 


If there is one infirmity or defect of those five senses with which we are 
most of us blest which more than any other attracts sympathy and claims 
compassionate consideration, it is blindness, —an inability to know what is 
beautiful in form or in color, to appreciate light, or to recognize and compre- 
hend the varying features of our fellow-men, —a perpetual darkness in the 
midst of a world of light, —a total exclusion from the readiest, pleasantest, 
and most available means of acquiring ideas. 

And yet who would suppose that there exists, and is tolerably common, a 
partial blindness, which has hardly been described as a defect for more than 
half a century, and of which it may be said, even now, that most of those who 
suffer from it are not only themselves ignorant of the fact, but those about 
them can hardly be induced to believe it. The unhappy victims of this par- 
tial blindness (which is real and physical, not moral) are at great pains in 
learning what to them are minute distinctions of tint, although to the rest of 
the world they are differences of color of the most marked kind, and, after 
all, they only obtain the credit of unusual stupidity or careless inattention, 
in reward for their exertions and in sympathy for their visuai defect. We 
allude to a peculiarity of vision which first attracted notice in the case of 
the celebrated propounder of the atomic theory in chemistry, the late Dr. 
Dalton, of Manchester, who, on endeavoring to find some object to compare 
in color with his scarlet robe of doctor of laws, when at Cambridge, could 
hit on nothing which better agreed with it than the foliage of the adjacent 
trees, and who, to match his drab coat, — for our learned doctor was of the 
Society of Friends, — might possibly have selected crimson continuations, as 
the quietest and nearest match the pattern-book of his tailor exhibited. 

An explanation of this curious defect will be worth listening to, the more 
so as one of our most eminent philosophers, Sir John Herschel, has recently 
made a few remarks on the subject, directing attention at the same time to 
other little known but not unimportant phenomena of color, which bear 
upon and help to explain it. 

It is known that white light consists of the admixture of colored rays in 
certain proportions, and that the beautiful prismatic colors seen in the rain- 
bow are produced by the different degree in which the various rays of color 
are bent when passing from one transparent substance into another of 
different density. Thus, when a small group of color-rays, forming a single 
pencil or beam of white sunlight, passes into and through the atmosphere 
during a partial shower, and falls on a drop of rain, it is first bent aside on 
entering the drop, then reflected from the inside surface at the back of the 
drop, and ultimately emerges 4n an opposite direction to its original one. 
During these changes, however, although all the color-rays forming the 


140 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


white pencil have been bent, each has been bent at a different angle, —the 
red most, and the blue least. When, therefore, they come out of the drop, 
the red rays are quite separated from the blue, and when the beam reaches 
its destination, the various colors enter the eye separately, forming a line of 
variously colored light, the upper part red and the lower part blue, instead 
of a mere point of white light, as the ray would have appeared if seen before 
it entered the drop. The eye naturally refers each part of the ray to the 
place from whence it appears to come, and thus, with a number of drops 
falling and the sun not obscured, a rainbow is seen, which represents part of 
a number of concentric circular lines of color, the outermost of which is red, 
the innermost violet, and the intermediate ones we respectively name orange, 
yellow, green, blue, and indigo. 

It has also been found, by careful experiment, that these are not all pure 
colors, most of them being mixtures of some few that are really primitive 
and pure, and necessarily belong to solar light. It is these, mixed in due 
proportion, which make up ordinary white light, which is the only kind seen 
when the sun’s rays have not undergone this sort of decomposition, or sepa- 
ration into elements. The actual primitive colors are generally supposed to 
be red, yellow, and blue, and much theoretical as well as practical discussion 
has arisen as to how these require to be mixed, what proportion they bear 
to each other in their power of impressing the human eye, and many other 
matters, for which we must refer to Mr. Field, Mr. Owen Jones, and others, 
who have studied the subject and applied it. 

In a general way it is found convenient to remember, or rather to assume, 
that three parts of red, five parts of yellow, and eight parts of blue, form 
together white, and, therefore, that the pencil of white light contains three 
rays of red, five of yellow, and eight of blue. To produce the other prismatic 
colors, we must mix red with a little yellow to form orange; yellow with 
some blue to form green; much blue with a little red to form indigo, and a 
little blue with some red to form violet. In performing experiments on color 
it is convenient, instead of a drop of water, to substitute a prism of glass in 
decomposing the rays of light. We may thus produce at will a convenient 
image, called a prismatic spectrum, which, when thrown on a wall, is a broad 
band of colored lights, having all the tints of the rainbow in the same order. 
Looking at this image, the red is at the top and the violet at the bottom, 
and it may be asked, How does the red get amongst the blue to form violet, 
if the red rays are bent up to the top of the spectrum? The answer is, that 
a quantity of white light not decomposed, and a part of all the color-rays, 
reach all parts of the spectrum, however carefully it is sheltered, but that so 
many more red rays get to the top, so many more of the yellow to the 
middle, and so many more blue to where that color appears most brilliant, 
that these are seen nearly pure, whilst where the red and yellow or yellow 
and blue mix they produce distinct kinds of color, and where the blue at the 
bottom is faint, and some of those red rays fall that do not reach the red 
part of the spectrum, the violet is produced. In point of fact, therefore, all 
the colors of the spectrum, as seen, are mixtures of pure colors with white 
light, while all but red are mixtures of other pure colors with some red and 
some yellow, as well as white. Primitive and pure colors, therefore, are not 
obtained in the spectrum, and a question has arisen as to which really de- 
serve to be called pure; Dr. Young upholding green against yellow, and even 
regarding violet as primitive, and blue a mixed color. A consideration of 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 141 


the results of this theory would jead us farther than is necessary for the 
purpose we have now in view. 

We also find philosophers now-a-days calmly discussing a question which 
most people considered settled very long ago, namely, whether blue and 
yellow together really make green. 

It is of no use for the artist to lift up his eyes with astonishment at any one 
being so insane as to question so generally admitted a statement. In vain 
does he point to his pictures, in which his greens have been actually so pro- 
duced. The strict photologist at once puts him down, by informing him that 
he knows little or nothing of the real state of the case: his (the ariist’s) col- 
ors are negative, or hues of more or less complete darkness; whereas in nature 
the color question is to be decided by positive colors, or hues in which all the 
light used is of one kind. The meaning of this will be best undersiood by 
an exampie: When a ray of white light falls on a green leaf, part of the 
ray is absorbed and part reflected, and the object is therefore only seen with 
the part that is reflected. That which is absorbed consists of some of each 
of the color-rays, and the resuliing reflected light is nothing more than a 
mixture of what remains after this partial absorption. The green we see 
consists of the original white light deprived of a portion of its rays. It is 
net a pure and absolute green, but only a residual group of colored rays, and 
thus in so far the green color is negative, or consists of rays not absorbed. 
It is therefore partial darkness, and not absolute light. If, however, on the 
oiher hand, a ray of white light is passed through a transparent medium 
(e. g., some chemical salt) which has the property of entirely absorbing all 
but one or more of the color-rays, and no part of the remainder, then all the 
light that passes throuzh this medium is of the one color, or a mixture of the 
several colors that pass; and if such light is thrown on a white ground, the 
reflected color will be positive, and not negative, and is far purer as well as 
brighter than the color obtained in the other way. It has been found by 
actual experiment that when positive blue, thus obtained, is thrown on 
positive yellow, the resuliing reflected color bears no resemblance to green. 
Sir John Herschel considers that whether green is a primitive color —in 
other words, whether we really have three or four primitive colors — remains 
yet an open question. 

It was necessary to explain these matters about color before direcily 
referring to the subject of this paper, namely, blindness to certain color-rays. 
It should also be clearly understood that the persons subject to this peculiar 
condition of vision have not, necessarily, any mechanical or optical defect in 
the eye, as an optical instrument, which may be strong or weak, long-sighted 
or short-sighted, quite independently of it. Color-blindness does not in any 
way interfere with the ordinary requirements of vision, nor is there the 
smallest reason to imagine that it can get worse by neglect, or admit of any 
improvement by education or treatment. 

Assuming that persons of ordinary vision see three simple colors, red, 
yellow, and blue, and that all the rest of the colors are mixtures of these 
with each other and with white light, let us try to picture to ourselves what 
must be the visual condition of a person who is unable to recognize certain 
rays; and as it appears that there is but one kind of color-blindness known, 
we will assume that the person is unable to recognize those rays of white 
light which consist of pure red and nothing else. In other words, let us 
investigate the sensations of a person blind so far only as pure red is 
concerned. 


142 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


All visible objects either reflect the same kind of light as that which falls 
on them, absorbing part and reflecting the rest, or else they absorb more of 
some color-rays than others, and reflect only a negative tint, made up of a 
mixture of all the color-rays not absorbed. To a color-blind person, the 
mixed light, as it proceeds from the sun, is probably white, as seen by those 
having perfect vision; for, as we have explained already, positive blue and 
yellow (the color-rays when red is excluded) do not make green, and the 
absence of the red ray is likely to produce only a slight darkening effect. 
So far, then, there is no difference. But how must it be with regard to color? 

Bearing in mind what has been said above, it is evident that in withdrawing 
the red rays from the spectrum, we affect all the colors. The orange is no 
longer red and yellow, but darkened yellow; the yellow is purer, the green is 
quite distinct, the blue purer, and the indigo and violet no longer red and 
blue, but blue mingled with more or less of darkness, the violet being the 
darkest, as containing least blue in proportion to red, while the red part 
itself, though not seen as a color, is not absolutely black, inasmuch as its part 
of the spectrum is faintly colored with the few mixed rays of blue and yellow 
and white that escape from their proper place. The red then ought to be 
seen as a gray neutral tint, the orange a dingy yellow, the indigo a dirty 
indigo, and the violet a sickly, disagreeable tint of pale blue, darkened con- 
siderably with black and gray. 

Next, let us take the case of an intelligent person affected with color-blind- 
ness, but who is not yet aware of the fact. He has been taught from child- 
hood that certain shades, some darker and some brighter, but all of neutral 
tint, and not really presenting to him color at all, are to be called by various 
names, — scarlet, crimson, pale red, dark red, bright red, dark green, dark 
purple, brown, and others. With all these he can only associate an idea of 
gray; nor can he possibly know that any one else sees more than he does. 
Having been taught the names they are called by, he remembers the names, 
with more or less accuracy, and thus passes muster. There is a real differ- 
ence of tint, because each of these colors consists of more or less blue, 
yellow, and white, mixed with the red; and our friend is enabled to recog- 
nize and name them, more or less correctly, according to his acuteness of 
perception and accuracy of memory. 

If we desire to experiment on such a person, we must ask no names what- 
ever, but simply place before him a number of similar objects differently 
colored. Taking, for example, skeins of colored wools, let us select a com- 
plete series of shades of tint, from red, through yellow and green to violet, 
and request him to arrange them as well as he is able, placing the darkest 
shades first, and putting those tints together that are most like each other. 
It is curious then to watch the progress of the arrangement. In a case 
Jately tried by the writer of this article, the color-blind person first threw 
aside at once a particular shade of pale green as undoubted white, and then 
several dark blues, dark reds, dark greens, and browns, were put together 
as black. The yeliows and pure blues were placed correctly, as far as name 
was concerned, by arranging several shades in order of brightness, — but 
the order was very different from that which another person would have 
selected. The greens were grouped, some with yellows, and some with blues. 

The colors in this experiment were all negative and impure; but we may 
also obtain something like the same result with positive color, transmitted 
by the aid of polarized light through plates of mica. Ina case of this kind 
described by Sir J. Herschel, the only colors seen were blue and yellow, 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 143 


while pale pinks and greens were regarded as cloudy white, fine pink as 
very pale blue, and crimson as blue; white red, ruddy pink, and brick red 
were all yellows, and fine pink blue, with much yellow. Dark shades of 
red, blue, or brown were considered as merely dark, no color being recog- 
nized. 

The account of Dr. Dalton’s own peculiarity of vision, by himself, offers 
considerable interest. He says, speaking of flowers: “‘ With respect to 
colors that were white, yellow, or green, I readily assented to the appropriate 
term; blue, purple, pink, and crimson appeared rather less distinguishable, 
being, according to my idea, all referable to blue. I have often seriously 
asked a person whether a flower was blue or pink, but was generally con- 
sidered to be in jest.” He goes on further to say, as the result of his 
experience: “‘ 1st. In the solar spectrum three colors appear, — yellow, blue, 
and purple. The two former make a contrast; the two latter seem to differ 
more in degree than in kind. 2d. Pink appears by daylight to be sky-blue 
a little faded; by candle-light it assumes an orange or yellowish appearance, 
which forms a strong contrast to blue. 3d. Crimson appears muddy blue 
by day, and crimson woollen yarn is much the same as dark blue. 4th. Red 
and scarlet have a more vivid and flaming appearance by candle-light than 
by daylight”’ (owing, probably, to the quantity of yellow light thrown upon 
them). 

As anecdotes concerning this curious defect of color-vision, we may quote 
also the following: ‘‘ All crimsons appear to me (Dr. Dalton) to be chiefly 
of dark blue, but many of them have a strong tinge of dark brown. Ihave 
seen specimens of crimson claret and mud which were very nearly alike. 
Crimson has a grave appearance, being the reverse of every showy or 
splendid color.” Again: “The color of a florid complexion appears to me 
that of a dull, opaque, blackish blue upon a white ground. Dilute black 
ink upon white paper gives a color much resembling that of a florid com- 
plexion. It has no resemblance to the color of blood.” We havea detailed 
account of the case of a young Swiss who did not perceive any great differ- 
ence between the color of the leaf and that of the ripe fruit of the cherry, 
and who confounded the color of a sea-green paper with the scarlet of a 
riband placed close to it. The flower of the rose seemed to him greenish 
blue, and the ash-gray color of quicklime light green. On a very careful 
comparison of polarized light by the same individual, the blue, white, and 
yellow were seen correctly, but the purple, lilac, and brown were confounded 
with red and blue. There was in this case a remarkable difference noticed 
according to the nature and quantity of light employed; and as the lad 
seemed a remarkably favorable example of the defect, the following curious 
experiment was tried. A human head was painted, and shown to the color- 
blind person, the hair and eyebrows being white, the flesh brownish, the lips 
and cheeks green. When asked what he thought of this head, the reply 
was, that it appeared natural, but that the hair was covered with a nearly 
white cap, and the carnation of the cheeks was that of a person heated by a 
long walk. 

There is an interesting account in the Philosophical Transactions for 1859 
(p. 325), which well illustrates the ideas entertained by persons in this con- 
Gition with regard to their own state. The author, Mr. W. Pole, a well- 
known civil engineer, thus described his case: ‘‘I was about eight years 
old, when the mistaking of a piece of red cloth for a green leaf betrayed the 
existence of some peculiarity in my ideas of color; and as I grew older 


144 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


continued errors of a similar kind led my friends to suspect that my eyesight 
was defective; but I myself could not comprehend this, insisting that I saw 
colors clearly enough, and only mistook their names. 

“T was articled to a civil engineer, and had to go through many years’ 
practice in making drawings of the kind connected with this profession. 
These are frequently colored, and I recollect often being obliged to ask, in 
copying a drawing, what colors I ought to use; but these difficulties left no 
permanent impression, and up to a mature age Ihad no suspicion that my 
vision was different from that of other people. I frequently made mistakes, 
and noticed many circumstances in regard to colors which temporarily per- 
plexed me. I recollect, in particular, having wondered why the beautiful 
rose light of sunset on the Alps, which threw my friends into raptures, 
seemed all a delusion to me. I still, however, adhered to my first opinion, 
that I was only at fault in regard to the names of colors, and not as to the 
idea of them; and this opinion was strengthened by observing that the 
persons who were attempting to point out my mistakes often disputed 
among themselves as to what certain hues of color ought to be called.” Mr. 
Pole adds that he was nearly thirty years of age when a glaring blunder 
obliged him to investigate his case closely, and led to the conclusion that he 
was really color-blind. 

All color-blind persons do not seem to make exactly the same mistakes, 
or see colors in the same way; and there are, no doubt, many minor defects 
in appreciating, remembering, or comparing colors which are sufficiently 
common, and which may be superadded to the true defect,-—that of the 
optic being insensible to the stimulus of pure red light. It has been asserted 
by Dr. Wilson, the author of an elaborate work on the stibject, that as large 
a proportion as one person in every eighteen is color-blind in some marked 
degree, and that one in every fifty-five confounds red with green. Certainly 
the number is large, for every inquiry brings out several cases; but, as Sir 
John Herschel remarks, were the average anything like this, it seems incon- 
ceivable that the existence of the defect should not be one of vulgar noto- 
riety, or that it should strike almost all uneducated persons, when told of it, 
as something approaching to absurdity. He also remarks, that if one 
soldier ont of every fifty-five were unable to distinguish a searlet coat from 
green grass, the result would involve grave inconveniences, that must have 
attracted notice. Perhaps the fact that a difference of tint is recognized, 
although the eye of the color-blind person does not appreciate any differ- 
ence of color, when red, green, and other colors are compared together, and 
that every one is educated to call certain things by certain names, whether 
he understands the true meaning of the name or not, may help to explain 
both the slowness of the defective sight to discover its own peculiarity, and 
the unwillingness of the person of ordinary vision to admit that his neigh- 
bor really does not see as red what he agrees to call red. 

There is, however, another consideration that this curious subject leads to. 
It is known that out of every 10,000 rays issuing from the sun, and pene- 
trating space at the calculated rate of 200,000 miles in each second of time, 
about one-fifth part is altogether lost and absorbed in passing through the 
atmosphere, and never reaches the outer envelop of the human eye. It is 
also known that of the rays that proceed from the sun, some produce light, 
some heat, and some a peculiar kind of chemica! action to which the mar- 
vels of photography are due. Of these, only the light rays are appreciated 
specially by the eye, although the others are certainly quite as important in 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 145 


preserving life and carrying on the business of the world. Who can tell - 
whether, in addition to the rays of colored light that together form a beam 
of white light, four-fifths of which only pass through the atmosphere, there 
may not have emanated from the sun other rays altogether absorbed and 
lost; or whether, in entering the human eye, or being received on the retina 
at the back of the eye, or made sensible by the optic nerve, there may not 
have been losses and absorptions sufficient to shut out from us, who enjoy 
what we call perfect vision, some other sources of information? How, in a 
word, do we who see clearly only three or four colors, and their various 
combinations, together with their combined white light, — how do we know 
that to beings otherwise organized, the heat or chemical rays, or others 
we are not aware of, may not give distinct optical impressions? We may 
meet one person whose sense of hearing is sufficiently acute to enable him 
to hear plainly the shrill night-cry of the bat, often totally inaudible, while 
his friend and daily companion cannot perhaps distinguish the noise of the 
grasshopper or the croaking of frogs, and yet neither of these differs suf- 
ficiently from the generality of mankind to attract attention, and both may 
pass through life without finding out their differences in organization, or 
knowing that the sense of hearing of either is peculiar. So undoubtedly it 
is with light. There may be some endowed with visual powers extraordi- 
narily acute, seeing clearly what is generally altogether invisible; and this 
may have reference to light generally, or to any of the various parts of 
which a complete sunbeam is composed. Such persons may habitually see 
what few others ever see, and yet be altogether unaware of their powers, as 
the rest of the world would be of their own deficiency. 

The case of the color-blind person is the converse. He sees, it is true, no 
green in the fields, or on the trees; no shade of pink mantling in the coun- 
tenance, no brilliant scarlet in the geranium flower; but still he talks of 
these things as if he saw them, and he believes he does see them, until by a long 
process of investigation he finds out that the idea he receives from them is 
very different from that received by his fellows. He often, however, lives 
on for years, and many have certainly lived out their lives, without guessing 
at their deficiency. 

These results of physical defects of certain kinds remaining totally un- 
known, either to the subject of them or his friends, even when all are edu- 
cated and inteljjgent, are certainly very curious; but it will readily be seen 
that they are inevitable in the present development of our faculties. In 
almost everything, whether moral or intellectual, we measure our fellows by 
our own standard. He whose faculties are powerful, and whose intellect is 
clear, looks over the cloud that hovers over lower natures, and wonders why 
they, too, will not see truth and right as he sees them. Those, on the other 
hand, who dwell below, among the mists of error and the trammels of pre- 
judice, will not believe that their neighbor, intellectually loftier, sees clearly 
over the fog and malaria of their daily atmosphere. 

In taking leave of the question of color-blindness, it should be mentioned 
that hitherto no case has been recorded in which this defect extends to any 
other ray than the red. There scems no reason for this, and possibly, if they 
were looked for, cases might be found in which the insensibility of the optic 
nerve had reference to the blue instead of the red ray,— the least, instead of 
the most, refrangible part of the beam of light. It would also be well worth 
the trial if those who have any reason to suppose that they enjoy a superiority 
of vision would determine by actual experiment the extent of their unusual 

13 


146 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


powers, and learn whether they refer to an optical appreciation of the chemi- 
cal or heat rays, or show any modification of the solar spectrum by enlarge- 
ment or otherwise. 

Lastly, it would be well, when children show an unusual difficulty in de- 
scribing colors, to try, by some such experiments as those here related, whether 
any defect of color-blindness exists or not. It would clearly be undesirable 
that such children as have this defect should waste time in learning accom- 
plishments or professions which they must always be unable to practise. They, 
their parents, and teachers may thus be saved some of that disappointment 
which is always experienced when presumed tastes and talents are cultivated 
or forced contrary to the natural powers of the individual. It must clearly be 
hopeless to endeavor to obtain good taste in colors, when most of the colors 
themselves are not seen at all, or are so recognized as to present appearances 
altogether different from those seen by the rest of the world. 


THE CHAMELEON’S CHANGE OF COLOR. 


In 1827, the celebrated Dutch anatomist; Vrolik, ascertained the fact of the 
influence exercised by light on the color of these animals; and he observed 
also that there was a constant succession, or oscillation, of colors. Four 
years later, his countryman, Van der Hooven, executed the plan of repro- 
ducing in five different plates the changes of color he observed. These show 
that the fundamental color of the animal persists under all the variations 
which may take place in parts. He observes that the median line, from the 
chin downwards, is always of one yellowtint. In his opinion the changes of 
color are due to a pigment underneath the skin. This idea was taken up by 
Milne-Edwards, who had two chameleons with different shades of color: the 
one presenting violet-spots on its flanks; the other, green spots of varying 
shade. He observed that the change of color was quite independent of the 
animal’s swelling himself out or not. On removing a strip of skin from the 
dead animal, and placing it under a microscope, he observed that the darkest 
color was beneath the tubercles, and.that in these spots the yellow color was 
masked, but not replaced; it still existed, although the violet spots beneath 
it rendered it invisible. Two pigments therefore are possessed by the 
chameleon: one, the yellow pigment, being distributed over the surface; 
the other, the violet pigment, being distributed underneath tke former, and 
only becoming visible under certain circumstances, such as the stimulus 
of light. Milne-Edwards found that, on stimulating the yellow spots with 
alcohol or acids, they became violet; on stimulating the violet spots they 
became yellow. 

And thus, after many centuries of easy fable and reiterated assumptions, 
the more arduous but more fruitful methods of exact science gained the key 
to the whole mystery. But only the key. Milne-Edwards had explained the 
yellow and black hues, but had not explained the others. That was reserved 
for Prof. Bruecke, of Vienna. He has succeeded to the satisfaction of men of 
science; but as it would require more technical knowledge to understand his 
explanation than can be expected of the ordinary reader, and would lead us 
to a length beyond our limits, we will merely add, that his observations show 
that the chameleon has his own colors, and does not borrow them from sur- 
rounding objects ; if he sometimes shows more of one than of another, it is 
oan eee maiden blushing, the emotions of his soul are eloquent 

3 > simply that the rays of light act upon his skin. After 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 147 


which explanation, it is hoped that we shall hear no more scandals about 
this much abused Saurian. 


CHROMEIDOSCOPE. 


Under this name a new form of kaleidoscope has recently been brought 
outin England. The objects viewed, instead of being bits of colored glass, 
etc., are patches of floss silk of various colors, arranged on a spindle, capa- 
ble of being drawn in and out, and rotated, so as to make endless changes. 
The effect is very pretty, and, as any figure can be reproduced and kept sta- 
tionary, the instrument is likely to be of use to designers for manufactured 
goods, as well as forming a pleasing optical toy. 


THE DEBUSSCOPE. 


This name has been given to a recent French invention, which consists of 
two silvered plates, highly polished and of great reflective power, placed 
together in a frame-work of cardboard or wood, at an angle of seventy 
degrees. On being placed before a small picture, a design of any kind, no 
matter how rough, or whether good or bad, the debusscope will reflect the 
portion immediately under the eye, on all sides, forming the most beautiful 
designs; and, by being slowly moved over the picture, will form new designs 
to any extent. The instrument gives the design in such a manner that it 
can be made stationary at pleasure, until copied. It is, therefore, an inex- 
haustible treasure to draughtsmen and others. Setting aside the utility of 
the debusscope altogether, it can be made the means of gratification in the 
drawing-room, and, doubtless, will soon assume its proper place along with 
the microscope and stereoscope, as a source of amusement. 


LOSS OF LIGHT BY GLASS SHADES. 


A correspondent (W. King) of the London Journal of Gas-lighting gives 
the following table, made up from a series of experiments, of the amount of 


light lost by various shades : — ; 
Description of shade. Loss of light. 
Clear glass, . = S| abe eee gh re 
Ground glass (entire surface ground), - 29.48 
Smooth opal, r = : = = Se -buise ee 
Ground opal, See iy cag es Pe. | ee 


Ground opal, ornamented with painted ) 
figures, the figures intervening between wee 
the burner and the photometer screen, 


As the large amount of light lost by the use of a clear glass shade excited 
some surprise, a sheet of common window glass was placed between the 
burner and the photometer screen, when it was found that 9.34 per 
cent of the light was intercepted, thus confirming the result obtained by 
the employment of a shade of clear glass. The shades were selected from a 
large number, and great pains taken to obtain an average specimen of each 
kind. 

The result of a series of comparative experiments on the same subject 


148 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


has been also communicated to Silliman’s Journal, November, 1860, by 
F. H. Storer, Esq., of Boston. Instead of lamp shades, however, flat sheets 
of glass (ordinary window-panes), six by eight inches, were fitted to a rack 
of blackened wire, which was fastened to a photometer bar (one hundred 
inches long), at a distance of three feet from the gas-light. The illuminat- 
ing power of the gas used was equal to sixteen candles, consuming, by cal- 
culation, one hundred and twenty grains of spermaceti per hour. The results 


obtained were as follows: 


Description of glass. Thickness of glass. Loss of light. 

Thick English plate, é . 2 ofaninch, 6.15 per cent. 
Crystal plate, - . - - een cor. 
English crown, Po ee 4 ue 12.05: 
* Double English,” window-glass, 2 6 9.39 * 
‘Double German,”1  ‘* vs rc S 13.00 & 
“SingleGerman,”1 ‘“ as ts * 4.27 & 
Double German, ground, 2 4 “ 62.34 « 
Single German, ground, 2 qe = 65.75 
Berkshire (Mass.}, ground,2 . en 62.74. S 
Berkshire enamelled, z. e., ground 

only upon portions of its sur- is Ke 51.23 6 

face, — small figure, j 
“Orange-colored” window-glass, 45 f 34.48  && 
“Purple?  “ 6c “c 4 a ate fOr 85.11 
uy” is ‘: ‘ Ts ( aos ok aaa 
&“ Green”? cc 3 6c as 81.97 “c 
A porcelain transparency ee: fy Fe OF 6500 

Hunter), . ee ra 


* The term ‘loss of light,’”’ says Mr. Storer, ‘‘ does not at first seem to be 
strictly appropriate, for a very considerable portion of the light not trans- 
mitted by a glass shade might be reflected against the walls of the apart- 
ment in which the lamp is burning, and thus aid in the general illumination 
of the room. The meaning of the expression is, however, perfectly evident; 
and there can be no doubt that the numbers given express as accurately as 
the circumstances of the case admit the actual diminution in the amount of 
light falling, for example, upon the pages of a book held near its source, 
which would be occasioned by the interposition of the shades enumerated in 
the tables.” 

In wastes upon this subject, the editor of Silliman’s Journal further 
remarks : — 


1 Among the Boston dealers, the term German is applied to glasses of Belgian 
manufacture. 
Pi The enormous resistance to the passage of light which is offered by ground glass 
is certainly worthy the attention of those using it for windows, etc. 

The discrepancy between Mr. King’s results and my own, as regards ground 
glass, may perhaps be owing to the fact that the window glass used by myself was 
more coarsely ground than the lamp shades employed by him. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 


We cannot doubt that the great loss of light proved by the experiments 
above given, is to be, in part at least, accounted for by the conversion of a 
portion of the light into heat,— an effect perfectly in harmony with the the- 
ory of transverse vibrations as applied to explain the phenomena of polari- 
zation of heat. On this theory, heat and light are different effects produced 
by one and the same cause, and they differ physically only in the rapidity 
and amplitude of their vibrations. The screen through which the vibrations 
of light are propagated serves to diminish, first the rapidity of the vitations 
requisite to produce the most refrangible rays, and in proportion as the trans- 
parency of the screen is diminished by any cause, inherent or superficial, 
this arrest becomes more and more complete. As the more rapid ethereal 
vibrations have probably the least amplitude, we infer from analogy in sound- 
waves, that as waves of least intensity have the greatest amplitude, so with 
the luminiferous ether the extreme red has but little brilliancy. Hence the 
loss of light from polished screens is small compared with that observed in 
screens of opaline or roughened glass. {t would be instructive to examine 
the spectrum obtained from a pencil of rays under each of the cases given, 
by means of a sulphide of carbon prism. 

The subject of absorption of light by screens has long since been carefully 
examined by Bouguer. By a photometric method essentially like Rum- 
ford’s, Bouguer measured the loss of light in the beam of a candle compared 
with a flambeau, and also with the light of full-moon, in passing through 
sixteen thicknesses of common window-glass having a united thickness of 
21°43 millimetres = ‘85 inch. The mean Joss of light shown by these triais 
was as 247: 1, or Over ninety-nine per cent of the whole quantity. 

Six plates of the purest mirror plate glass, having a united thickness of 
15°128 millimetres, diminished the light in the ratio of 10 to 3, occasioning a 
loss of about seventy per cent of diffuse daylight. A mass of very pure 
glass, about three inches thick, diminished the light only about half the latter 
amount, owing to its being a single mass, and not cut up into many planes. 

He also measured the absorbing power of sea-water for light, and found, as 
the results of experiments made in France, and of observations also in the 
torrid zone, that at the depth of three hundred and eleven French feet the 
light of the sun would be equal only to that of the full moon, and at the 
depth of six hundred asd seventy-nine feet would wholly disappear. He 
estimates the transparency of the air as four thousand five hundred and 
seventy-five times greater than that of sea-water; and from the properties of 
a logarithmic curve (which he calls gradulucique), whose functions he had 
determined experimentally, he seeks to fix the outer limits of the atmosphere. 


ON A PROBABLE MEANS OF RENDERING VISIBLE THE CIRCULATION 
IN THE EYE. 


The following article is communicated to Silliman’s Journal by Professor 
Ogden W. Rood, of the Troy (N. Y.) University : — 

Some time ago, while looking at a bright sky through three plates of 
cobalt-glass, | saw with astonishment that the field of view was filled with, 
and traversed in all directions by, small bodies resembling animalcules. 
They were seen on the blue field as yellowish spots, and always appeared 
elongated in the direction of their motion, which was, as a general thing, 
tolerably uniform. The same result was obtained by experimenting upon 
the eyes of a number of persons. Convex lenses of various foci, from three 

13* 


150 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


inches to one-half inch, were now held before the eyes, so as to give the 
blue light various degrees of convergence and divergence, without in the 
least altering the appearance of the moving bodies; this seemed to indicate 
that their locality was in the retina or in its immediate neighborhood. A 
position near the axis of vision was selected, and observed, when it was 
found that these bodies in traversing this spot always pursued the same di- 
rection and path, disappearing at the same point; other positions near the 
axis gave like results. 

This would seem to preclude the possibility of the moving bodies being 
animalcules swimming in the humor of the eye; the most probable remain- 
ing supposition is, that they are blood corpuscles circulating in the retina or 
in its immediate neighborhood. The apparent diameter of these bodies 
when seen projected on a window six feet distant may be about ao of an 
inch, which corresponds to about 7,455 of an inch on the retina. The 
average diameter of the blood globules is +5455 of an inch, but taking into 
account the fact that the shadows of the moving bodies are not well defined, 
the correspondence may be considered pretty satisfactory. 

The question now arises as to the manner in which the blue glass renders 
the circulation visible; for these moving shadows cannot be seen with dis- 
tinctness through red, orange, yellow, green, nor even purple, media; they 
are, on the other hand, well shown by a certain thickness of a solution of the 
cupro-sulphate of ammonia. Yeliow solutions, when combined with the 
blue glass or blue solutions, render the circulation invisible, and it does not 
reappear till the yellow solution has been made so dilute as barely to 
preserve a yellow tint, and to transmit the spectrum almost unaltered. This 
shows that the indigo and violet rays are principally concerned in the pro- 
duction of this appearance; but that it cannot be attributed to fluorescent 
properties in the blood discs is indicated by the fact that the circulation can 
be seen through a considerable thickness of crown glass, through an infusion 
of red sanders wood mixed with ammonia, as well as through a solution of 
the bisulphate of quinine. 

The only explanation that has occurred to me as being probable is the 
following: the blood discs are yellow, and consequently opaque, to a great 
extent, to the indigo and violet rays; they would, therefore, in passing before 
the retina, cast shadows on it; now, the retina being already strongly im- 
pressed with blue light, that portion of it which was momentarily protected 
from the action of this light would experience the complementary sensa- 
tion, — or would see, instead of a moving shadow, a yellowish moving streak. 
This explains, also, why the appearance is not seen with any distinctness in 
red, orange, yellow, or green light, for yellow media are, to a great extent, 
transparent to all their rays, and therefore fail to cast shadows. These 
observations, if new, may be of some interest to those engaged in the study 
of the physiology of the eye. 


ON OUR INABILITY FROM THE RETINAL IMPRESSION ALONE TO 


DETERMINE WHICH RETINA IS IMPRESSED. — BY PROFESSOR WIL- 
LIAM B. ROGERS. 


Although on first view it might be supposed that an impression made in 
either eye must necessarily be accompanied by a mental reference to the par- 
ticular organ impressed, it will be seen from the following simple experi- 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 151 


ments that the impression of itself is not essentially suggestive of the special 
retinal surface on which it is received. 

Exp. 1. Let a short tube of black pasteboard, one-fifth of an inch in diam- 
eter, be fixed in a hole in the centre of a large sheet of the same material. 
Hold the sheet a few inches before the face of a second person, and between 
him and a bright window, moving it to and fro until the bright circular aper- 
ture of the tube is brought directly in front of one of the eyes, suppose the 
left eye; and let him fix his attention upon the sky or cloud to which the tube 
is directed. He will feel as if the impression or image of the hole belongs 
equally to both eyes, and will be unable to determine which of them really 
receives the light. 

Exp. 2. Similar results may be obtained by rolling half a sheet of letter 
paper into a tube, of about one inch in diameter, and holding it before and a 
little in advance of one eye, while both are directed to a white wall some feet 
distant. Keeping the view fixed upon the wall, there will be seen upon its 
surface a circular image of the remote aperture of the tube. This, as we 
look intently at it, will appear as if seen equally by both eyes, occupying a 
midway position between them. If now the eyes be converged to some point 
nearer than the end of the tube, the circular image will appear against the 
side of the tube, giving the impression that it is seen by the eye which is 
remote from the tube, and is, at the same time, directed towards the outside. 
For the complete success of this experiment, the wall should be only moder- 
ately bright, and but little light should fall on the exterior of the tube next 
the uncovered eye. 

Exp. 3. Let two tubes of stiff paper, each one inch in diameter and six 
inches long, be held close to the two eyes in a converging direction so that 
the outer ends may touch each other. Then directing the view through 
them to a white wall, at a short distance, the observer will see the two tubes 
as one, with a single circular opening clearly marked out on the wall. If 
now a small object, as the end of the little finger, be brought near and in 
front of one of the tubes, it will take its place within this circle, and will 
seem to be equally an object of vision to both eyes, so that the observer will 
be wholly unable to decide before which eye it is actually placed. 

Let the observer next direct his view to avery remote object, —as the sky, 
—seen through the window, still retaining the previous adjustment of the 
tubes. He will now see two circles, continuing separate as long as he keeps 
his eyes fixed on the distant surface; and if the finger be held up, as before, 
in front of one of the tubes, it will appear within the circle which is in front 
of the other eye, thus causing the impression on the right eye to be appar- 
ently transposed to the left, and vice versa. 

Exp. 4. Fasten a small disc of white paper on a slip of black pasteboard, 
of the size suitable for a stereoscope, and place this in the instrument so that 
the white spot shall be centrally in front of one of the glasses. To a person 
not aware of the position of the spot, it will appear in the stereoscope as if 
equally in view to both eyes, and he will be entirely unable to decide on 
which retina its picture is impressed. Indeed, properly considered, the spot 
does not appear directly in front of either eye, but is seen at the intersection 
of the optic axes, in the medial or binocular direction between the two. 

Let the spot be now moved toward the right side, but still within the range 
of the left eye, and it will seem to be before the right eye rather than the 
left. Shift it into the right compartment, but not far from the dividing line, 
and it will appear as if seen chiefly by the left eye; and, finally, bring to it 


152 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the middle of the right compartment, and it will seem as at first to belong 
equally to both eyes.! 

Referring to the results observed in the above experiments, when the 
object is directly in front of either eye, it may be concluded that the mere 
retinal impression on either eye is unaccompanied by any consciousness of 
the special surface impressed; and that the formation of the visual percep- 
tion appertains to that part of the optical apparatus near or within the brain, 
which belongs in common to both eyes. 

These observations show moreover that the perceived direction is just as 
truly normal to the central part of the retina which has received no light, as 
to that of the retina on which the white spot has been painted. Indeed, as 
before indicated, it is normal to neither, but is felt to be in the middle line 
between the two; that is, in the binocular direction. It need scarcely be 
added, that this conclusion is at variance with the law of visible direction, 
maintained by Brewster, which requires that the apparent direction of an 
object shall in all cases be normal to the part of the retina impressed. 

The reference of the object, in certain cases above noticed (parts of 1, 2, 
and 4), to one eye chiefly, and that the eye from which it is actuaily hidden, is 
accounted for by the direction in which the other eye receives the light. As 
this direction, in the case of the left eye, for instance, would be decidedly 
toward the field of view of the right eye, it would at once suggest the place of 
the object as somewhere before that eye; and so, when the object is actually 
before the right eye, but in a position towards the left, it would excite the 
idea of an object somewhere before the left eye. As the retinal picture alone 
gives no indication of the particular eye in which it is formed, but only ex- 
cites a visual consciousness common to both, the object in these cases will 
seem to be visible by both eyes, but chiefly by that before which the sugges- 
tion just mentioned would naturally place it. 

Exp. 5. Thus if we place on the black slide of the stereoscope two spots, 
differing either in shape or color, one before each eye, we perceive them both 
in the middle or binocular direction, each seemingly visible in an equal de- 
gree to both eyes, the one being seen through or upon the other, according 
to the fitful attention or suggestion of the moment. A pleasing modifica- 
tion of this experiment is made by using two unequal white spots on the 
black slide, and interposing a green or other colored glass between one of 
them and the lens. The spot which appears colored will give as strongly the 
impression of being seen by both eyes as the white one, in spite of our 
knowledge of the position of the colored glass. 

Exp. 6. To observe this effect satisfactorily, it is well to make the experi- 
ment in an apartment in which a single small lamp is placed at some distance 
from the spot on which we stand. Looking intently at the lamp, we bring 
the pencil before the face in such position as to give us an image on each 
side of the lamp, and then move the pencil toward the right until its left 
hand image seems to coincide in direction and position with the lamp, which 
appears to shine through, or to partially replace it. As we continue to look 
thus at the lamp, we have a clear impression that both lamp and pencil are 
equally visible to both eyes; and without some consideration of the previous 


1 The effect here described is one of a series of phenomena, which Dr. 0. W. 
Holmes attributes to an actual transfer of impressions from one eye to the other, 
and which he proposes to explain by the hypothesis of reflex vision. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 153 


adjustment and motions we are unable to determine which is actually visible 
to the right and which to the left eye. 

The same experiment furnishes also an incidental illustration of the prin- 
ciple of transposed visual reference, before aliuded to. If, while the above 
adjustment is maintained, we contemplate the other image of the pencil, sit- 
uated some distance to the right of the lamp, and endeavor to decide, from 
the mere visual impression, to which eye it appertains, we almost unfailingly 
refer to the right eye as that which most nearly fronts it; although obviously 
it belongs to the other, as will be found at once on closing either eye. 

Where the eyes are externally very sensitive, any strong illumination of 
one as compared with the other will interfere with the effect above described, 
by referring the impression specially to the eye thus unduly excited. In such 
cases the observation is best made, in a moderately lighted room, by inter- 
posing the pencil between the eye and a vertical stripe on the wall. 

Exp. 7. Recurring to experiment 2, in which, with a tube in frontof one 
eye, we perceive a bright circle on the wall in the medial direction, we may 
obtain a pleasing illustration of the point now under consideration, by bring- 
ing a dark card or book, or even the hand, between the uncovered eye and 
the wall. The spot, instead of being intercepted, will appear as a perforation 
in the opaque screen. 

Here, as in the case of the pencil and lamp, the bright circle and the screen 
are both optically referred to the intersection of the two lines of view. But 
the luminous circle almost or entirely obliterates the corresponding part of 
the screen. As the full view of the screen and its connections continually 
remind us that it is in front of the uncovered eye, we are led to refer the 
luminous circle seen as coincident with a part of it to the same eye, and 
thus to believe that we are looking through the screen with that eye. It is, 
however, not difficult, by intently regarding the luminous circle, so to coun- 
teract the force of this extraneous suggestion as to feel, even in this case, as 
if the circle were equally in view to both eyes. 

These considerations explain very simply the experiment of the pseudo- 
diascope described by Mr. Ward, of Manchester, whieh, like several of those 
above mentioned, is but an instance of the old observation of Da Vinci, that 
when we see behind a small opaque object presented near the eyes “‘ it be- 
comes as it were transparent.” In making this experiment with a tube of 
paper supported between the thumb and fore-finger of the left hand, and held 
before the right eye, so that the back of the hand may be some inches in 
advance of the left eye, it will be noticed that the effect varies with the amount 
of convergence of the eyes, and that the bright perforation in the hand may 
or may not be referred to the left eye, according to the force of the accessory 
suggestion, or the intentness with which we fix our gaze upon the distant 
spot to which the axes are converged. 

In conclusion, it may be remarked that the experiments which have been 
described are, for the most part, too obvious and familiar to have merited 
such a special notice, but for the peculiar and in some respects new interpre- 
tation which they have offered of many visual phenomena. Considered in- 
this relation, we are, I think, entitled to conclude from them, 

First, That the retinal impression of an object presented directly to either 
eye is accompanied by the feeling of a united visual act, and os itself gives 
no indication of the particular eye impressed. And, 

Second, That the reference of the impression to one eye rather than the 
other is the result of collateral suggestion, which may either locate the image 


154 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in the eve that actually receives it, or may transpose it seemingly to the other, 
according to the particular conditions of the observation.— Silliman’s Journal. 


NEW APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 


Sir Henry James, director of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, states, 
that by means of the application of photography to the reduction of maps 
in the Ordnance Survey office a saving of at least £35,000 has been effected. 
Formerly the reduction had been effected by the pentagraph, when the 
accuracy depended on the skill of the operator; now, by merely fixing a 
camera before a plan, it could be reduced to any scale desired, by an opera- 
tion of a few minutes’ duration, and with the greatest accuracy. The scales 
of the maps were ten and a half feet to the mile, twenty-five inches to the 
mile, six inches to the mile, and one inch to the mile. Maps could be 
reduced from the large scale to all the smaller ones by photography, except 
to the scale of one inch to the mile. Here it was found that photography 
was rather too accurate. The photograph thus reduced was found to be too 
much covered with details, so that they still had to employ the pentagraph 
in the last operation. The photographs of the maps, once taken, are trans- 
ferred to a copper or zinc plate by a new process, called “ photo-zincogra- 
phy,” which is substantially as follows: Instead of printing the negative on 
ordinary printing paper, they employed tracing paper, washed over with a 
saturated solution of bi-chromate of potash and gum-water, and exposed to 
the action of light. This rendered the bi-chromate insoluble in water. The 
print was then placed face downwards on a metal plate, covered with litho- | 
graphic ink. It was then washed to remove the portion not acted on by 
light, by dissolving away the bi-chromate of potash, when the printing was 
left, of a light brown color, in lithographic ink. This could be transferred 
to a copper plate, as a guide to the engraver, by placing it face downwards 
and burning it in; or, for zincographic purposes, by burnishing it down on 
a zine plate and merely inking the plate with ordinary ink. 

Application of Photography to the Ornamentation of Porcelain.— A patent 
has been recently granted in England to John Wyard, for the production of 
photographic images on plates of glass and porcelain, in such a way as to 
enable them to be permanently fixed by being burnt in with ceramic colors. 
The details of the process, which are of too technical a character to warrant 
insertion in this connection, are made public, and seem to promise a large 
measure of success. ; 

On the Employment of Photography for the Determination of the Path and 
Valocities of Shooting Stars. — Professor J. H. Lane, in a communication to 
Silliman’s Journal (July, 1860), suggests the employment of photography 
for the accurate determination of the path and velocity of a shooting star, 
with a view to the determination of its orbit. The general plan proposed for 
adoption by Prof. L. is as follows: In the first place, simple exposure of a 
highly sensitive photographic plate in a camera, at a given station, would 
give the apparent track of a meteor as seen by the observer at that station, 
and a pair of such records, made in two cameras at two stations, would give 
the track in absolute space. In the second place, if one of the two cameras 
were furnished with a mechanism by which equidistant points of time should 
be marked upon the track made in that camera, these points could be referred 
to the real path in space, and if both cameras were in like manner furnished, 
the two records would, to that extent, be a check upon each other, and serve 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 155 


to reduce the limits of probable error. The device for marking time is an 
application of the revolving glass prism. Thus, immediately in front of the 
object-glass of the camera, a glass prism, of small angle and sufficient area to 
cover the entire aperture, is made to rotate at an accurately measured rate 
of say twenty-five revolutions per second. The prism may be replaced by an 
eccentric lens, or the object-glass itself may revolve on a slightly eccentric 
axis. The consequence will be that the image of a fixed star in any part of 
the field of view will traverse the circumference of a circle every twenty-fifth of 
a second, and the image of a shooting star will combine this motion with its 
motion of translation. If the photographic surface retain a visible impres- 
sion of the looped curve or the waved curve which will thus be produced, 
then, neglecting for the present the small effects of optical distortion, the 
line drawn midway between the two straight or regularly curved lines 
between which the looped or waved curve oscillates, will represent the 
apparent track of the meteor, and the points where it intersects the looped 
or waved curve, if they be translated along this middle line through a space 
equal to the optical displacement of the meteoric image, will show the 
apparent place occupied by the meteor at points of time separated by the 
equal intervals of one-fiftieth of a second. 

In the above statement I have supposed only a single camera, but it will 
probably be impossible in this way to command a sufficient extent of the 
heavens. A system of many cameras may, however, be formed, so arranged 
that their severai optic axes shall cross in a common point in front of the 
object-glasses. The object-glasses may thus be approximated as closely as 
we can desire, and the several revolving prisms, or eccentric lenses, may 
have a common geared connection, and the backs of the cameras will be 
readily accessible for the renewal of plates. 

The observer, after having made the necessary adjustments, will be 
charged with the sole duty of watching for meteors in the region covered by 
his system of cameras, and at the appearance of a meteor will touch a 
spring, so contrived as to cause the instant unveiling of all the cameras of 
the system, and on the extinction of the meteor will promptly replace the 
screen. The expense and trouble of the process will be certainly great, but 
will not be disproportionate to the importance of the object in view. Only 
let us have a photographic surface that will give a visible trace of the 
meteor’s path, in the face of exposure to the light of the sky during the time 
of the meteor’s visible flight, and then success, as regards thetattainment of 
an accurate record, will be nearly certain, and we should not hesitate at the 
expense and trouble. 

If, upon suitable trials made upon the fixed stars, and upon shooting stars 
themselves, we find ourselves in possession of sufficient photographic power, 
there is no reason why an organized system of observations should not be 
instituted. A moderate degree of accuracy in the absolute determination of 
the orbits, except when they make a near approach to the parabola, will be 
sufficient to answer alli the questions of interest that will be likely to arise, 
upon which a knowledge of the orbits would have any bearing. Whether 
the November meteors, for instance, move through regions that would 
identify them with the Zodiacal light, according to the theory of the late 
Prof. Olmsted, is a question that would receive an absolute determination. 

Charcoal Photographs and Photographic Enamels.—Indestructible charcoal 
photographs are now produced by exposing gelatine and bi-chromate of 
potash to the action of light, and then exposing the surface to steam. The 


156 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


moisture softens the parts exposed to the light, so that when charcoal, or any 
other substance in impalpable powder, is sifted over the picture, it adheres to 
the softened parts of the picture. By the same process enamels may be pro- 
duced direct from the camera, or otherwise, by sifting a metallic oxide over 
the gelatine on the enamel plate, and then heating in the furnace. 

Application of Photography in construction of Micrometers. — The successful 
application of photography in the construction of micrometers has been 
made by Mr. Clarence Morfit, of the United States Assay Office, New York. 
It is merely the reduction of a large scale of exact dimensions and divisions 
to a definite size, suitable for microscopic instruments. A scale of ten inches 
divided into inches and tenths of an inch has been reduced in this manner to 
one-twentieth of an inch, thus making its smallest divisions equal to one 
two-thousandth part of an inch square. The method is simple, accurate, and 
economical. Moreover, the micrometer has the advantage of giving the 
exact measurement of the object in fractions of an inch, and at the same time 
determines the power of the microscope itself. — Silliman’s Journal. 

Adaptation of Machinery to Photography. — At a meeting of the American 
Photographical Society, Aug. 1860, Mr. G. H. Babcock called attention to a 
plan devised by Mr. Charles Fontayne, of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the adapta- 
tion of machinery to photographic printing. The general plan adopted was 
given as follows: — 

A negative is fixed in a box, together with a sheet of prepared paper, and 
the latter exposed by automatic machinery to the condensed light of the sun 
passing through the negative. After each exposure the paper is traversed 
underneath the negative, to present a fresh surface for the succeeding impres- 
sion. These motions, together with that of clamping the negative into close 
contact with the paper at the instant of exposure, are all performed by the 
operator simply turning a crank. 

The rapidity of the process, as witnessed by Mr. Babcock, was stated to 
be at the rate of two hundred impressions per minute: —the photographic 
paper used is prepared by a process known only to the inventor. 

If this invention is what it is represented to be, it opens a field for pho- 
tography hitherto impracticable, in consequence of the time and expense of 
printing, as ordinarily practised. The illustrations for a book, having all the 
exquisite beauty and perfection of the photograph, may be turned out, by the 
use of this machine, with a rapidity wholly undreamed of, either in plate 
printing or lit#ography. The expense of engraving may be dispensed with, 
and the negative come direct from the artist’s hands, drawn upon a prepared 
glass, from which, in the course of a few hours, the plates for a large edition 
may be printed, each one a perfect duplicate of the original drawing. 


NEW METHOD OF COPYING ENGRAVINGS. 


The London Builder gives the following rule for transferring engravings 
to white paper: — Place the engravings for a few seconds over the vapor of 
iodine. Dip a slip of white paper in a weak solution of starch, and, when dry, 
in a weak solution of oil of vitriol. When dry, lay a slip upon the engraving, 
and place them for a few minutes under the press. The engraving will thus 
be reproduced in all its delicacy and finish. The iodine has the property of 
fixing the black parts of the ink upon the engraving, and not on the white. 
This important discovery is yet in its infancy. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 157 


PANORAMIC STEREOSCOPES. 


A patent has been recently taken out in England for a compound stereoscope, 
in which general or panoramic views of boulevards, streets, banks of rivers, 
and coast lines, monuments, sea views, etc., may be displayed by means of the 
gradual unrolling of one or more endless slides or bands carrying pictures. 
The distinctive feature of this invention is the adaptation to stereoscopes of 
one or more symmetrical, independent, movable, endless bands, on which are 
right and left hand halves, or corresponding parts of a stereoscopic pano- 
rama, or succession of pictures. The following is the construction of the in- 
strument: The top thereof consists, as usual, of two lenses or eye-glasses, 
and the bottom thereof is mounted on a box containing rollers, on which are 
wound the before-mentioned endless slides or bands, on which are printed, 
pasted, or otherwise appropriately attached, the views or pictures in panora- 
mic succession; also a train of wheelwork for setting the aforesaid bands in 
motion. The aforesaid bands and corresponding parts of the pictures thereon 
are brought under their respective eye-glasses upon a flat stage or platform 
over which the bands pass, so that, when set in motion, a panoramic stereos- 
copic view or picture is thus obtained. The description of the instrument is 
not very clear, we fear, to those who are not acquainted with the effect. We 
have, however, seen a similar instrument, and can assure our readers that 
nothing can surpass the beauty and interest of a beautiful stereoscopic pano- 
rama moving before the eyes of the spectator. — Photographic News. 


PERSISTENT ACTIVITY OF LIGHT. 


M. Moigno, editor of the Cosmos, communicates the following interesting 
facts in relation to the above subject: — 

M. Niepce St. Victor exhibited to us a large tin tube, closed hermetically, 
and rendered inaccessible to all external agencies, except variations of tem- 
perature. He opened the tube in our presence, exposed, without unrolling it, 
a sheet of paper prepared with tartaric acid and isolated, which he had 
enclosed in the tube nearly a year before, poured on this sheet a few drops of 
nitrate of silver, and showed us that the nitrate was almost immediately 
biackened, exactly as it would have been in a strong light. It was impossible 
not to atiribute this instantaneous effect to the persistent action of the light 
absorbed, a year ago, by the paper soaked in tartaric acid. If the experiment 
was more successful this time, although kept for a longer period, it was 
because of the much more perfect closure of the tube; and that which 
happened after a year would certainly happen after five or six years. 

Again, M. Busk has established the following fact: Plunge a sheet of paper 
into a solution of a properly chosen acid, organic or inorganic, for example, 
acetic or tartaric acid; dry it; render it sensitive by the bath of nitrate of 
silver, and dry it again; place it in contact with the drawing which it is de- 
sired to reproduce for a half hour or more; then expose the paper to the sun’s 
rays, and a negative image of the drawing will be seen, which may be fixed 
by washing with common waiter. It is not even necessary that the exposure 
to the light should take place at once; the paper may be preserved for several 
days, between two sheets of white paper, without losing its property of 
developing the latent image under the influence of the sun’s rays. What is 
more difficult to explain, is, that there is no necessity of insolating or exposing 
to light the original picture. 

14 


158 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


To these facts, or to their interpretation, M. Thenard would oppose the 
following experiment which he has communicated to the Philomathic Society. . 
Ist. During the night he disinsolated a sheet of common paper, by exposing 
it to the vapor of water for an hour. 2d. He then divided the paper into two 
parts; one was laid aside for comparison, the other was rolled up and placed 
in a glass tube, to one end of which ozonized oxygen was supplied; at the 
end of a quarter of an hour the ozone was distinctly perceived at the other 
extremity; the paper was then withdrawn. 3d. This paper, used in the same 
manneras M. Niepce’s insolated paper, produced the same effects; the paper 
kept for comparison produced none of them. 4th. A paper treated with 
chlorine or nitrate of silver, and then ozonized, gave, on the contrary, no 
sensible result. 5th. Common paper, ozonized and kept for some time in a 
test tube, disengages a smell which is not that of ozone, but that of a very 
diffusible essence. What shall we conclude from this? added M. Thenard, — 
That the phenomena of insolation described by M. Niepce are chemical 
phenomena, determined indirectly by the light, which acts in this matter 
only as an intermediate agent. 

The subject has also been investigated by M. Laborde, who is led by his 
experiments to conclude that the active agent “is an emanation, not a radia- 
tion.”’ 

The following are two of his experiments: 

1st. The sensitive paper was parily covered by glass plate, in contact with 
it; another plate, of glass or ivory, was placed across the first, so as to oppose 
the direct radiation from the part which covered it, but not to the circulation 
of any vapors emanated; when the box was opened, the paper was found 
evenly blackened throughout, except under the glass in contact with the 
paper. 

2d. The box containing the insolated sheet was left for four hours ina 
warm place. M. Laborde then opened it carefully, and, holding the opening 
downwards, gently withdrew the sheet; then, quickly fixing the sensitive 
paper upon the cork, he re-closed the box and placed it in acool place. When 
it was again opened, afier twelve hours, the sensitive paper was found 
blackened, notwithstanding the absence of the insolated sheet. 


SOLAR LIGHT AND HEAT. 


M. de Chacornac, after numerous observations, has arrived at the conelu- 
sion that the central portion of the solar disc, equal to three-tenths of its 
diameter, is the most brilliant; and that the luminosity gradually diminishes 
from the edge of this space to the rim of the disc. Near its edge the light 
is only half as brilliant as in the central space. 

M. Secchi has also made analogous discoveries with respect to the sun’s 


heat, and finds that the calorific power of the zone nearest the edge of the 
disc is only half that of the centre. 


ON THE MEASUREMENT OF THE CHEMICAL ACTION OF THE SOLAR 
RAYS. 


In a recent lecture on the above subject before the Royal Institution, Lon- 
don, Professor Roscoe stated: That the heating rays of the solar spectrum 
vibrate most slowly, and are situated near the red end; while at the violet 
end are found the most rapidly vibrating or chemical rays, by whose agency 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 


plants decompose the carbonic acid of the air, assimilate the carbon, and 
give off the oxygen for the use of the animal creation. The intensity of the 
chemical rays is measured by an instrument which contains equal volumes 
of chlorine and hydrogen, and enables the quantity of hydro-chloric acid 
formed by their combination to be accurately ascertained. The mixed gases 
do not combine in the dark, and the quantity of acid formed is directly pro- 
portional to the incident light. In order to institute a comparison, it ig neces- 
sary to agree upon a unit or standard flame. This is obtained by a jet of 
ignited carbonic oxide gas of known dimensions. The unit amount of chem- 
ical action is that effected by such a flame acting for one minute, at a distance 
of one meter, upon the mixed gases. Ten thousand such units are called 
one chemical degree of light. In measuring the sun’s action, the chemical 
photometer must not be exposed to the full blaze of its beams, or the effect 
would be too violent. A known portion of solar rays are therefore admitted 
through a small aperture, and by means of Silbermann’s heliostate the solar 
image is reflected all day upon the same spot. When the effect of a given 
portion of the light is known, the effect of the whole can be calculated. A 
cloudless day should be selected for these observations. In one experiment, 
made on the 15th of September, 1858, the total action of the sun, at 7h. 9m., 
A.M., was 5.54 degrees; and by 9h. 14m. it reached 67.61 degrees. The larger 
action, as the sun rises higher, is occasioned by the diminution of the col- 
umn of air through which its rays pass, and a consequent lessening of their 
absorption. Knowing the law according to which this effect takes place, the 
action of solar rays upon different parts of the globe, or upon different plan- 
ets, can be calculated. Thus Mercury experiences an action equal to 2125.0 
degrees, while Neptune enjoys only 0.4. The differences upon the earth are 
very striking. Thus, at noon, at the vernal equinox, Melville Island has 3.51 
degrees solar chemical action; Manchester, 47.15, and Cairo, 105.3. Chem- 
ical action of this kind is greater at elevations than on the sea-level. In the 
highlands of Thibet, where wheat flourishes at 12,000 and 14,000 feet above 
the sea, the sun’s chemical action is one and a half times as great as in the 
adjacent lowlands of Hindostan. It is to be regretted that at present there 
is no easy and portable instrument for making these observations. 


PHOTOGRAPHING COLOR. 


A short paper, by Sir John Herschel, in the London Phetographic News, 
contains some important remarks on this subject. Sir John expresses his 
firm belief that the problem will one day be solved; and mentions a photo- 
graph in his own possession, in which green foliage is unmistakably 
distinguished as green from the sepia tints of other portions of the picture. 
He’considers it important, in attempts to obtain color, that the non-luminous 
rays should be cut off, which can be done by quinine. In the absence of a 
perfect positive photography, he reminds experimenters that they must work 
through the intervention of a negative; and that they ought not to expect 
this negative to be colored, either as the objects are, or with their comple- 
mentary colors, in order to yield a colored picture by the process of 
photographic painting. The effect of colors in the object would thus be to 
convert the negative into absorbent media, which would reproduce the colors 
from whose action they were derived. 


160 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


SUN SIGNALS FOR THE USE OF TRAVELLERS. 


If apiece of looking-glass be held in such a position that a person at a 
distance can see some portion or other of the sun’s dise reflected in it; it 
assumes the appearance of an exceedingly brilliant star of solar light. At 
a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Francis Galton, the 
Africap traveller, described an optical arrangement he had devised, by which 
the signaller may know whether he is holding the mirror aright. The 
smallest size of hand heliostat can literally be carried in the waistcoat 
pocket, yet, by its means, whenever the sun is shining, a signal can be 
instantly made that shall be visible to the entire neighborhood of any given 
spot within sight. A distance of twelve miles, on a day of average clearness, 
is well within the power of this little instrument. If the flash be replied to, 
a regular communication can be carried on, in which the signals are varied 
by gentle movements of the hand that cause the flash to be seen and to 
disappear alternately; words and sentences are communicated by a notation 
of long and short flashes, identical with the notation of long and short beats 
that is used in Morse’s electric telegraph. 


ON THE SEPARATION OF THE HEAT AND LIGHT OF THE SUN’S RAYS 
IN THE EYE. 


A paper has recently been communicated to the French Academie des 
Sciences, by J. M. Janssen, giving an account of a series of experiments un- 
dertaken by him to ascertain how large a portion of the heat-rays pass 
through the central portions of the eye and reach the retina at the back. 
His experiments show that all the rays of heat are absorbed before they 
reach the retina,—two-thirds by the cornea, and the other third by the 
aqueous humor. 


THE MECHANICAL THEORY OF HEAT. 


The following paper, communicated by Mr. D. V. Clark, C. E., to the 
London Engineer, sets forth in a popular manner what is now understood by 
the so-called ‘“‘mechanical theory of heat.”’ The principle of this theory of 
heat is, that, independently of the medium through which heat may be 
developed into mechanical action, the same quantity of heat converted is 
invariably resolved in the same total quantity of mechanical action. For 
the exact expression of this relation, of course, units of measure are estab- 
lished, in terms of the English foot, as the measure of space; the pound 
avoirdupois, as the measure of weight, pressure, elasticity; and the degree 
of Fahrenheit’s scale, as the measure of temperature and heat. Work done 
consists of the exertion of pressure through space, and the English unit of 
work is the exertion of one pound of pressure through one foot, or the rais- 
ing of one pound weight through a vertical height of one foot, —pbriefly, a 
foot-pound. The unit of heat is that which raises the temperature of one 
pound of ordinary cold water by one degree Fahrenheit. If two pounds of 
water be raised one degree, or one pound be raised two degrees in tempera- 
ture, the expenditure of heat is, equally in both cases, two units of heat. 
Similarly, if one pound weight be raised through one foot, or two pounds 
weight be raised through two feet, the power expended, or work done, is 
equally in both cases two units of work, or two foot-pounds. From these 
definitions, then, the comparison lies between the unit of heat, on the one 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 161 


part, and the unit of work, or the foot-pound, on the other. M. Clapeyron, 
in his treatise on the moving power of heat, and M. Noltzman, of Manheim, 
in 1845, who availed himself of the labors of M. Clapeyron and M. Carnot in 
the same field, grounding their investigations on the received laws of Boyle 
or Marriotte, and Gay-Lussac, which express the observed relations of heat, 
elasticity, and volume in steam and other gaseous matter, concluded that 
the unit of heat was capable of raising a weight, between the limits of six 
hundred and twenty-six pounds and seven hundred and eighty-two pounds, 
one foot high; that is to say, that one unit of heat was equivalent to from 
six hundred and twenty-six to seven hundred and eighty-two foot-pounds. 
By this mode of investigation, they suppose a given weight of steam or 
gaseous matter to be contained in a vertical cylinder formed of non-conduct- 
ing material, in which is fitted an air-tight but freely moving piston, which 
is pressed downward by a weight equal to the elasticity of the gas. Now, 
the weight, initial temperature, pressure, and volume, being known, a defi- 
nite quantity of heat from without is supposed to be imparted to the vapor; 
and the result is partly an elevation of the temperature of the vapor, and 
partly a dilation or increase of volume; or, in other words, an exertion of 
pressure through space, the elasticity remaining the same. But the result 
may be represented entirely by dilation, so that. there shall not be any final 
alteration of temperature; and for this purpose it is only necessary to allow 
the vapor to dilate without any loss of its original or imparted heat until it 
reacquires its initial temperature. In this case, the ultimate effect is purely 
dilatation, or motion against pressure; and the work done is represented by 
the product of that pressure into the space moved through. 

Mr. Joule, of Manchester, in 1843-47, proceeded, by entirely different, 
independent, and, in fact, purely experimental methods, to investigate the 
relation of heat and work. 1st. By observing the calorific effects of magneto- 
electricity. He caused to revolve a small compound electro-magnet immersed 
in a glass vessel containing water between the poles of a powerful magnet; 
heat was proved to be excited by the machine by the change of temperature 
in the water surrounding it, and its mechanical effect was measured by the 
motion of such weights as by their descent were sufficient to keep the 
machine in motion at any assigned velocity. 2d. By observing the changes 
of temperature produced by the rarefaction and condensation of air. In this 
case, the mechanical force producing compression being known, the heat 
excited was measured by observing the changes of temperature of the water 
in which the condensing apparatus was immersed. 3d. By observing the 
heat evolved by the friction of fluids. A brass paddle-wheel, in a copper 
can containing the fluid, was made to revolve by descending weights. Sperm 
oil and water yielded the same results. Mr. Joule considered the third 
method the most likely to afford accurate results: and he arrived at the con- 
clusion that one unit of heat was capable of raising seven hundred and 
seventy-two pounds one foot in height; or that the mechanical equivalent of 
heat was expressible by seven hundred and seventy-two foot-pounds for one 
unit of heat — known as “ Joule’s equivalent.” 

The following are the values of Joule’s equivalent for different thermomet- 
ric scales, and in English and French units : — 


1 English thermal unit, or 1 deg. Fah. in 1 1b. of water, 772 foot-pounds. 


1 centigrade degree in1 lb. of water, . : : > hig Ec Sale 
1 French thermal unit, or 1 centigrade degree in a 
kilogramme of water, . . . .  «. 428.55 kilogrammetres. 


14* 


162 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


The mechanical theory of heat rests upon a wide basis, and proofs in 
verification of the theory are constantly accumulating. When the weight of 
any liquid whatever is known, with the comparative weight of its vapor at 
different pressures, the latent heat at the different pressures 1s readily esti- 
mated from the theory; and this method of estimation agrees with the best 
experimental results, as may afterwards be shown; and when the latent heat 
is also known, the specific heat of the liquid can be determined by means of 
the same theory; in other words, the quantity of work, in foot-pounds, may 
be determined, which would, by agitating the liquid or by friction, be required 
to raise the temperature of any given quantity of the liquid by, say, one 
degree, altogether independently of Joule’s experiments. The theory enables 
us to discover the utmost power it is possible to realize from the combination 
of any given weight of carbon and oxgyen, or other elementary substances, 
with nearly as much precision as we can estimate the utmost quantity of 
work it is possible to obtain from a known weight of water falling through 
a given height. It is not difficult to comprehend, then, that the theory of 
the mechanical equivalent of heat proves of great practical utility. 

According to the mechanical theory of heat, in its general form, heat, 
mechanical force, electricity, chemical affinity, light, sound, are but different 
manifestations of motion. Dulong and Gay-Lussac proved by their experi- 
ments on sound that the greater the specific heat of a gas, the more rapid 
are its atomic vibrations. Elevation of temperature does not alter the 
rapidity, but increases the length of the vibrations, and, in consequence, 
produces “‘expansion”’ of the body. All gases and vapors are assumed to 
consist of numerous small atoms, moving or vibrating in all directions with 
great rapidity; but the average velocity of these vibrations can be estimated 
when the pressure and weight of any given volume of gas is known, pressure 
being, as explained by Joule, the impact of those numerous small atoms, 
striking in all directions, and against the sides of the vessel containing the 
gas. The greater the number of these atoms, or the greater their aggregate 
weight, in a given space, and the higher the velocity, the greater is the pres- 
sure. A double weight of a perfect gas, when confined in the same space, 
and vibrating with the same velocity, — that is, having the same tempera- 
ture, — gives a double pressure; but the same weight of gas, confined in the 
same space, will, when the atoms vibrate with a double velocity, give a 
quadruple pressure. An increase or decrease of temperature is simply an 
increase or decrease of molecular motion. The truth of this hypothesis is 
very well established, as already intimated, by the numerous experimental 
facts with which it is in harmony. 

When a gas is confined in a cylinder under a piston, so long as no motion 
is given to the piston, the atoms, in striking, will rebound from the piston 
after impact with the same velocity with which they approached it, and no 
motion will be lost by the atoms. But when the piston yields to the pressure, 
the atoms will not rebound from it with the same velocity with which they 
strike, but will return after each succeeding blow with a velocity continually 
decreasing as the piston continues to recede, and the length of the vibrations 
will be diminished. The motion gained by the piston will, it is obvious, be 
precisely equivalent to the energy, heat, or molecular motion, lost by the 
atoms of gas. Vibratory motion, or heat, being converted into its equivalent 
of onward motion, or dynamical effect, the conversion of heat into power, or 
of power into heat, is thus simply a transference of motion; and it would 
be as reasonable to expect one billiard-ball to strike and give motion to an- 


a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 


other without losing any of its own motion, as to suppose that the piston of 
a steam-engine can be set in motion without a corresponding quantity of 
energy being lost by some other body. 

In expanding air spontaneously to a double volume, delivering it, say, into 
a vacuous space, it has been proved repeatedly that the air does not fall 
appreciably in temperature, no external work being performed; but, on the 
contrary, if the air, at a temperature, say, of two hundred and thirty degrees 
Fahrenheit, be expanded under pressure or resistance, as against the piston 
of a cylinder, giving motion to it, raising a weight, or otherwise doing work 
by giving motion to some other body, the temperature will fall nearly one 
hundred and seventy degrees when the volume is doubled, that is, from two 
hundred and thirty degrees to about sixty degrees; and, taking the initial 
pressure of forty pounds, the final pressure would be fifteen pounds per 
square inch. 

When a pound weight of air in expanding, at any temperature or pressure, 
raises one hundred and thirty pounds one foot high, it loses one degree in 
temperature; in other words, this pound of air would lose as much molecular 
energy as would equal the energy acquired by a weight of one pound falling 
through a height of one hundred and thirty feet. It must, however, be 
remarked, that but a small portion of this work, one hundred and thirty foot- 
pounds, can be had as available work, as the heat which disappears does not 
depend on the amount of work or duty realized, but upon the total of the 
opposing forces, including all resistance from any external source whatever. 
When air is compressed the atmosphere descends and follows the piston, as- 
sisting in the operation with its whole weight; and when airis expanded, 
the motion of the piston is, on the contrary, opposed by the whole weight of 
the atmosphere, which is again elevated. Although, therefore, in expanding 
air the heat which disappears is in proportion to the total opposing force, it 
is much in excess of what can be rendered available; and, commonly, where 
air is compressed, the heat generated is much greater than that which is due 
to the work which is required to be expended, the weight of the atmosphere 
assisting in the operation. 

Let a pound of water, at a temperature of two hundred and twelve degrees 
Fahrenheit, be injected into a vacuous space or_vessel, having 26.36 cubic 
feet of capacity, —the volume of one pound of saturated steam at that tem- 
perature, — and let it be evaporated into such steam, then 83.8 units of heat 
would be expended in the process. But if a second pound of water, at two 
hundred and twelve degrees, be injected and evaporated at the same temper- 
ature, under a uniform pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch due to the 
temperature, the second pound must dislodge the first, by repelling that pres- 
sure, involving an amount of labor equal to 55,800 foot-pounds (that is, 14.7 
pounds X 144 square inches X 26.36 cubic feet), and an additional expendi- 
of 72.3 units of heat (that is, 55,800 +772), making a total for the second 
pound of 965.1 units. 

Similarly, when one thousand four hundred and eight units of heat are 
expended in raising the temperature of air at constant pressure, one thousand 
of the units increase the velocity of the molecules, or produce a sensible 
increment of temperature; while the remaining four hundred and eight parts, 
which disappear as the air expands, are directly expended in repelling the 
external pressure. 

Again: If steam be permitted to flow from a boiler into a comparatively 
vacuous space, without giving motion to another body, the temperature of 


164 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the steam entering this space would rise much higher than that of the steam 
in the boiler. Or, suppose two vessels side by side, one of them vacuous 
and the other filled with air at, say, two atmospheres, acommunication being 
opened between the vessels, the pressure would become equal in the two ves- 
sels; but the temperature would fall in one vessel and rise in the other; and 
although the air is expanded in this manner to a double volume, there would 
not on the whole be any appreciable loss of heat; for, if the separate por- 
tions of air be mixed together, the resulting average temperature of the 
whole would be very nearly the same as at first. It has been proved experi- 
mentally, corroborative of this argument, that the quantity of heat required 
to raise the temperature of a given weight of air to a given extent, was the 
same, irrespective of the density or volume of the air. Regnault and Joule 
found that to raise the temperature of a pound weight of air one cubic foot 
in volume, or ten cubic feet, the same quantity of heat was expended. 

In rising against the force of gravity steam becomes colder, and partially 
condenses while ascending, in the effort of overcoming the resistance of 
gravity, by the conversion of heat into water. For instance, a column of 
steam weighing, on a square inch of base, 250.3 pounds, — that is, a pressure 
of 250.3 pounds per square inch, — would, at a height of 275,000 feet, be re- 
duced to a pressure of one pound per square inch; and ascending to this 
height, the temperature would fall from four hundred and one degrees to one 
hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit; while, at the same time, nearly twenty- 
five per cent of the whole vapor would be precipitated in the form of water, 
if not supplied with heat while ascending. 

If abody of compressed air be allowed to rush freely into the atmosphere, 
the temperature falls in the rapid part of the current by the conversion of 
heat into motion; but the heat is almost all reproduced when the motion is 
quite subsided; and from recent experiments it appears that nearly similar 
results are obtained from the emission of steam under pressure. 

When water falls through a gaseous atmosphere its motion is constantly 
retarded as it is brought into collision with the particles of that atmosphere, 
and by this collision it is partly heated and partly converted into vapor. 

If a body of water descends freely through a height of seven hundred and 
seventy-two feet, it acquires from gravity a velocity of two hundred and 
twenty-three feet per second; and if suddenly brought to rest when moving 
with this velocity, it would be violently agitated, and raised one degree in 
temperature. But suppose a water-wheel, seven hundred and seventy-two 
feet in diameter, into the buckets of which water is quietly dropped, when 
the water descends to the foot of the fall, and is delivered gently into the 
tail-race, it is not sensibly heated. The greatest amount of work it is possi- 
ble to obtain from water falling from one level to another lower level is 
expressible by the weight of water multiplied by the height of the fall. 

The object of these illustrative exhibitions of the nature and reciprocal 
action of heat and motive power, with their relations, are: first, to familiarize 
the reader with the doctrine of the mechanical equivalence of heat; second, 
to show that the nature and extent of the change of temperature of a gas, 
while expanding, depends nearly altogether upon the circumstances under 
which the change of volume takes place. 


NEW METALLIC THERMOMETERS. 


A new registering thermometer invented by Dr. James Lewis, of Mohawk, 
N. Y., has the following construction :— 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 165 


The part of the instrument forming the thermometer proper consists of a 
cylindrical bundle of iron and brass wires (No. 13), about fifteen inches in 
length, so arranged as to be equivalent to about forty-five inches of iron wire 
antagonized by about an equal length of brass wire. The bundle is composed 
of five pairs, two of brass and three of iron, arranged alternately around 
the centre, and a single wire of brass, equivalent in action to a third pair of 
that metal, placed in the axis of the cylinder. The upper end of the central 
wire, moved by the difference of expansion of the two metals, operates upon 
the short arm of the first of a train of two levers, and through them upon 
the axle of a pulley. To the grooved circumference of the larger wheel of 
this pulley is attached a slender silk cord, carrying the registering point 
designed to mark the temperature, and which, by the multiplying effect of the 
mechanism, is moved over a space three hundred and twenty times as great 
as the differential expansion or contraction of the wires. The registering 
point, properly balanced by an attached weight, and guided in its vertical 
movements by two slender parallel rods, is made to record the temperature 
on a fillet of paper moved by a train of cylinders whose axes are parallel to 
the guide-wires. The record is impressed by the impulse of a hammer strik- 
ing upon the back of the registering point at regulated intervals, and thus 
producing a series of small perforations in the paper, the hammer and the 
fillet of paper both receiving their motion from a train of clock-work, of 
peculiar construction, connected with the apparatus. 

The projecting shaft of the pulley carries an index, which, revolving in 
front of a dial-plate placed over the pulley, enables the observer to note the 
temperature as compared with the ordinary thermometer, and to adjust the 
rod-thermometer to the staméard whenever necessary. The adjustment is 
made by turning a screw connected with the lower end of the central brass 
wire of the thermometer. The latter instrument is on the outside of the case 
which incloses the dial, registering apparatus, and clock. By a peculiar 
arrangement of the clock-work, the hammer movements, and therefore the 
times of registration,,.may be adjusted to quarter-hour, half-hour, or hour 
intervals, and may be changed from one to the other at the will of the 
observer. 

The above description is derived from a report made to the Boston Society 
of Natural History, by Professor W. B. Rogers, who also takes occasion to 
recommend the instrument as worthy the critical examination of men of 
science, and one which, from its great sensitiveness and accuracy, promised 
to become a valuable help in meteorological observations. 

Beaumont’s new Metallic Thermometer. — The principle of a new thermom- 
eter recently invented by Victor Beaumont, of New York, is the dilatation of 
different metals. <A straight strip of brass and a similar strip of steel are 
soldered together; when heated, the compound strip expands more on the 
brass side than on the other, hence bends in a curve. One end of the strip 
is made fast to the case; the other end is connected, by means of a link and 
a crank, to the spindle which carries the hand. The crank is provided with 
a regulating screw, by means of which the range of motion is made to cor- 
respond with the graduation on the dial; and the whole machinery of the 
spindle is carried on a stand, which is moved by another screw, to set the 
instrument after a standard. This setting screw is reached from the outside, 
and if the thermometer gets out of order it may easily be set to work cor- 
rectly by means of a screw-driver. The external appearance of the instru- 
ment is that of a watch, four inches diameter, with a Fahrenheit and a centi- 


166 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


grade scale on the dial. These thermometers are correct, portable, easily 
read, and very quick, since the expanding metal is in direct contact with the 
air, which enters the cases by holes made for the purpose. Metallic ther- 
mometers, especially Breguet’s, are used in laboratories to measure very 
minute variations of temperature, but they are very dear. Mr. Beaumont 
has succeeded, by means of well-adapted tools, in making them cheaper 
than accurate mercurial thermometers. And he adapts them to several uses, 
for which they are unrivalled, namely, for vacuum sugar-pans, gas-workers, 
measuring temperatures below the freezing point of mercury, measuring 
the temperature of super-heated steam and of hot-air furnaces, up to 
1.200° Fahrenheit. 


DEEP-SEA THERMOMETER. 


The principle of a new deep-sea thermometer, devised by Mr. Wentworth 
Scott, of England, is as follows: The upper portion of the thermometer 
(glass) tube terminates in a capillary orifice, bent at a right angle to it, and 
enclosed in a vacuum chamber, the lower part of which contains mercury. 
By inverting the thermometer the mercury runs from the bulb up the stem 
and through the orifice, until the latter is covered and a vacuum left below. 
The reservoir bulb is then slightly elevated, and a portion of mercury runs 
back again, leaving the thermometer tube quite full to the point of the capil- 
lary orifice. In this condition it is obvious that any additional heat must 
cause the mercury to flow out of the orifice in small drops, which are, so to 
speak, helped out by a fine platinum wire, which prevents the formation of 
large drops. Upon cooling, the mercury sinks, and the vacant space, left by 
the effusion of a portion of it, is a measure of thé heat to which the instrument 
has been exposed, and it is graduated so as to facilitate the necessary calcu- 
lations. 


ON THE USE OF STEAM EXPANSIVELY. 


Much interest is now felt among engineers as tothe economy of using 
steam expansively. Mr. Isherwood, chief engineer of the United States 
Navy, after a long series of experiments in the Brooklyn Navy-yard, came 
to the conclusion that there was no appreciable advantage derived from 
working it expansively. Recent experiments at the Metropolitan Flouring 
Mills, in New York City, where there are two pairs of very fine engines, 
indicate, also, that there is no advantage in it, in spite of the very evident 
theoretical gain. 


CAUSES OF COLD ON HIGH MOUNTAINS. 


A recent number of the Annales de Chimie et de Physique contains an inter- 
esting paper, by M. Martins, on the above subject. He treats first of the 
action of solar rays, and the absorption of their heat by the atmosphere in 
proportions varying with its density. In consequence of the greater rarefac- 
tion of air on mountains it stops less of the solar heat, and hence, in clear 
weather, the sun’s rays exert a greater heating power upon the earth than 
they do at a lower level. Repeating, with better instruments, some experi- 
ments of Saussure, he came to the same conclusion; and asserts that the solar 
heating power is greater on a mountain than in the valley, although the 
temperature of the air was twenty-two degrees lower. The difference was, 
however, only slight, amounting only to a fraction of a degree (centigrade). 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 167 


He remarks that if this difference appears small to some readers, they will, 
at least, admit that the solar rays have equal power on mountain-tops as in 
the valleys beneath. The results of a series of observations on the tempera- 
ture of the soil on mountains lead to the conclusion that its mean tempera- 
ture was greater than that of the air; while at ‘Brussels, and other low 
situations, the mean temperature of the air was a little Wher than that of 
the earth. He found that this warming of the earth on mountains was not 
confined to the summer, but that between the twenty-first of September and 
the first of October it was even greater. This relative heating of the earth on 
mountains exercises an important influence on Alpine vegetation, and like- 
wise drives the permanent snow-line to a higher region. But although the 
soil of mountains is warmed, as well as that of the plains, the air is much 
colder, and the nocturnal radiation much greater, so much so as to constitute 
a proof that the earth must receive more warmth during the day, or its 
temperature would fall lower than is observed. M. Martins remarks, that 
on a plain the earth is only in contact with the lower stratum of the atmos- 
phere, while an isolated peak, like the Faulhorn, is plunged into the aerial sea, 
and radiates, not only towards the zenith, but in every direction, and the 
process is favored by the rarefaction of the air. When mountains are 
covered with snow their radiation is still more considerable, especially at 
altitudes at which it never melts, and where it remains as a fine powder or 
dust. Flocculent snow does not exhibit this great radiating power. Another 
cause of the cooling of the earth and air on mountains is the great evapora- 
tion which takes place, and which, other things being equal, is more active 
than in the plains. Another cause is the dilatation of ascending currents, 
owing to the diminution of atmospheric pressure; a subject upon which M. 
Martins made numerous experiments, of which he tabulates the results, and 
in which he imitated, as far as possible, natural conditions. Passing from 
the question of thermometrical cold, M. Martins considers the reasons of the 
sensation of cold experienced by travellers. Among these he reckons the 
agitation of the air, which, he says, is never quiet on isolated peaks. He 
likewise notices the effect of walking through the intensely cold, deep, pow- 
dery snow, and the deficient supply of oxygen, through breathing rarefied air. 


ON THE EXISTENCE OF A LUNAR TIDAL-WAVE ON THE GREAT 
AMERICAN LAKES. 


The following letter has been addressed to the Editor of the Annual of 
Scientific Discovery, by Lieutenant Colonel J. D. Graham, of the Topograph- 
ical Engineers, U. S. A., Superintendent of Lake and Harbor Improve- 
ments for the Northern Lakes. 

Until the announcement to the Topographical Bureau of the War Depart- 
ment, contained in my annual report of November 15, 1858,! and to the 
Chicago Historical Society at its annual meeting on the 30th of that month,? 
the existence of a lunar tidal-wave on our great North American fresh-water 
lakes had never been demonstrated; but, on the contrary, it had very gene- 
rally been denied. That announcement was based upon a series of daily 


1 See pp. 1107 and 1108 of vol. ii. Part 2 of Congressional (Executive) Doc., No. 2, 


of the 35th Congress, 2d Session. 
2See Historical Magazine, vol. iii., p. 89, published monthly, at New York, by 


C. B. Richardson. 


168 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


observations very carefully made upon a tide-gauge established at the outer 
or lakeward extremity of the north harbor-pier, off the entrance to Chicago 
harbor, during the four consecutive years previous. During the last four 
months preceding the announcement, the observations were made upon the 
tide-gauge at least.twice a day, namely, when the moon was south, or on the 
meridian, and when in the horizon, or at or very near the periods which 
corresponded to the time of lunar high and low water. From at least a 
day before to a day after the full of the moon, the observations were made 
either hourly or half-hourly. These were the data for the first announce- 
ment. k 

For the more complete solution of this problem we afterwards instituted 
a special series of observations, intended to show not only the elevation of 
this tidal-wave at its summit, but also its elevation at every half hour or 
quarter hour of its progress from low to high water, and thence to low water 
again. This series was commenced on the Ist of January, and continued, 
both day and night, at every half hour ordinarily, and at every quarter hour 
from one day before to at least two days after the periods of the new and 
full moon, up to the 1st of July of the year 1859, a continuous period of six 
months. 

It embraced nine thousand one hundred and eighty-four observations of 
the tide-gauge. 

As many as two hundred and thirty-two observations were lost during 
several periods of violent storms, chiefly in February and March, 1859. But 
for this loss, our series would have embraced nine thousand four hundred and 
sixteen observations.! 

We assumed the times of the moon’s meridian passage, whether culminat- 
ing or antipodal, as periods of comparison, and reduced all the nine thousand 
one hundred and eighty-four observations to the nearest half-hour or quarter- 
hour period of elapsed time for each lunar half day. In this way we 
obtained the half-hour coordinates of elevation of the surface of Lake Michi- 
gan, at Chicago, from lunar low to lunar high water, and thence again to 
lunar low water, for our demonstration of the average semi-diurnal lunar 
tide for the whole period of six months. In asimilar way the quarter-hour 
coordinates were obtained for the demonstration of the character of the aver- 
age semi-diurnal spring-tide during five conjunctions and five oppositions of 
the moon and sun. 

The results of this investigation were communicated in a paper to the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its fourteenth 
meeting, which took place at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 1st of August, 
1860. 

The following Table (I.) shows the average semi-diurnal lunar tide on Lake 
Michigan, derived from the above-mentioned nine thousand one hundred and 
eighty-four observations, embracing every vicissitude, whether favorable or 
unfavorable, of winds, weather, etc., which attended them. 

Here we have one hundred and forty-six thousandths of a foot, or one and 
three-fourths inch, as the general average height of the summit of the semi- 


1 The general result from the first half of this series, verifying our first an- 
nouncement, was communicated to the Topographical Bureau in my annual 
report of October 31, 1859. The memoir embracing the subject will be found 
printed at pp. 895 to 898, and at pp. 929 to 938 of vol. iii. of Senate Executive Doc., 
No. 2, of the 36th Congress, Ist Session. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 169 


diurnal lunar tidal-wave on Lake Michigan, at Chicago; and thirty minutes 
after the period of the moon’s meridian passage as the average time of lunar 
high water. These are the results from ail the observations made during the 
six months’ series. 


TABLE I. — Showing the half-hourly (and at two periods the quarter-hourly) 
codrdinates of altitude of the average semi-diurnal lunar tidal-wave at Chicago, 
on Lake Michigan, derived from the whole 9,184 observations made. 


Mean Solar intervals of| Observed elevation of ||Mean Solar intervals of, Observed elevation of | 
time before the Moon’s| the lake surface, in time after the Moon’s the lake surface, in 


meridian passage. decimals of a foot. meridian passage. decimals of a foot. 
h.m. Foot Decimals. h. m. Foot Decimals. 
5 35 0.000 1 0 30 0.1463 
5 30 0.004 0 45 0.148 
5 00 0.008 1 00 0.134 
4 30 0.016 115 0.1384 
4 00 0.030 1 30 0.130 
3 30 0.040 2 00 0.116 
3 00 6.053 2 30 0.112 
2 30 0.078 3 00 0.082 
2 00 0.087 8 30 0.066 
1 30 0.089 4 00 0.048 
1 00 0.115 4 30 0.040 
0 30 0.130 5 00 0.032 
0 002 0.1402 5 30 0.024 
6 00 0.030 4 
6 30 0.012 
6 50 0.0001 


TABLE II.— Showing the half-hourly (and at two periods the quarter-hourly) 
coordinates of altitude of the average semi-diurnal lunar tidal-wave at Chicago, 
on Lake Michigan, as derived from 8,995 out of the 9,184 observations made 
between January 1st and July 1st, 1859. 


Mean Solar intervals of} Observed elevation of Mean Solar intervals of Observed elevation of 


time before the Moon’s| the lake surface, in time after the Mocn’s the lake surface, in 
meridian passage, decimals of a foot. | meridian passage. aecimals of a foot. 
h.m. Foot Decimals. h, m. Foot Decimals. 
5 33 0.900 1 0 39 0.1538 
5 3) 0.005 0 45 0.148 
5 00 0.004 1 00 0.187 
4 30 0.013 115 0.134 
4 00 0.030 1 30 0.132 
3 30 0.041 2 00 0.113 
3 00 0.054 2 30 0.107 
2 30 0.078 3 00 0.084 
2 09 0.090 ~ 3 30 0.056 
1 30 0.098 4 00 0.040 
1 00 0.108 4 30 0.031 
0 30 0.127 5 00 0.025 
0 002 0.148 2 5 30 0.023 
6 00 0.024 
6 30 0.010 
6 50 0.000 1 
1 Lunar low-water. 2 Moon on Meridian. 3 Lunar high-water. 


4 Slightly discrepant, owing to a preponderance of unfavorable winds at this 
particular period. 


170 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


On a close examination of all the observations embraced in this series, we 
find one hundred and eighty-nine which we think ought to be rejected, 
because influenced in an extraordinary degree by unfavorable winds, and we 
think the average semi-diurnal lunar tidal-curve should rather be adopted, as 
shown by the remaining eight thousand nine hundred and ninety-five obser- 
vations. 

The general result will then stand as shown in the preceding Table (II.), 
page 169. 

Under this view we have one hundred and fifty-three thousandths of a foot, 
or 1,84, inch, as the general average height of this semi-diurnal tidal-wave 
at its summit; and thirty minutes after the moon’s meridian passage still 
appears to be the average time of lunar high-water. 

A separate tabulation was made, for every quarter-hour of interval, of all 
the observations which occurred from twelve hours before to twenty-four 
hours after the periods of new and full moon, for each lunation. In this way 
we hoped to obtain, at each new and at each full moon, six semi-diurnal tides, 
each of which would approximately represent a semi-diurnal spring-tide, and 
a mean of all would tend to eliminate errors arising from the disturbing 


TABLE III. — Showing the quarter-hourly codrdinates of altitude of the average 
semi-diurnal lunar spring tidal-wave at Chicago, on Lake Michigan, as 
derived from 1200 observations made at and near the several periods of New 
and Full Moon, between January 3d and June 2d, 1859. 


Mean Solar interval of| Observed elevation of ||Mean Solar interval of | Observed elevation of 
time before the Moon’s| the Jake surfuace,in time after the Moon’s the lake surface, in 
meridian passage. decimals of a foot. meridian passage. decimals of a foot. 


h. m. Foot Decimals. Foot Decimals. 


0.248 
0.2543 
0.241 
0.229 
0.226 
0.221 
0.221 
0.201 
0.179 
0.161 
0.140 
0.120 
0.112 
0.103 
0.093 
0.0724 
0.066 
0.072 
0.067 
9-059 
0-046 
0-040 
0-042 4 
0-050 4 
0-027 
0-000 1 


for) 
Sas 


Naonowrue 


WMOowowocn 


54 
5 3 
51 
5 00 
44 
43 
4] 
40 
34 
3 3 
31 
3 00 
2 45 
2 30 
2 15 
2 00 
14 
13 
ga 
10 
0 4 
03 
01 
0 00 


D> D2 2 OVO ON OV HB HE CO CD CO CS DO DD DO DO 
BaSKSnSsKsansasnsasas 


1 Low-water of lunar spring-tide. 2 Moon on Meridian. 

3 High-water of lunar spring-tide. 

4 Slightly discrepant, owing to a preponderance of unfavorable winds at this 
particular period. : 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 171 


forces caused by the irregularity both of the directions and strength of the 
winds. The losses already mentioned, occasioned by violenc storms, extended 
in part to these spring-tides. We were fortunate enough, however, to obtain 
good quarter-hourly observations for as many as twenty-four of these semi- 
diurnal spring-tides. The mean result from them is shown in the preceding 
Table (III.), page 170. 

Here we have, again, thirty minutes after the time of the moon’s meridian 
passage as the time of high water at the period of lunar spring-tides; and 
we have two hundred and fifty-four thousandths of a foot, equal to 3.408 
inches, United States measure, as the height of the lunar spring-tidal wave 
at its summit. 

In accordance with custom, in like cases, we indicate as the established 
mean for the port of Chicago, 


3 Foot, 0h. 30m. 


Although this indication may be but of small practical advantage to navi- 
gators, yet it may serve as a memorandum of a physical phenomenon whose 
existence has very generally, heretofore, been either denied or doubted. 

We think it probable that if the effects of unfavorable winds, and all other 
extraneous forces which produce irregular oscillations in the elevation of the 
lake surface, could be fully eliminated, a semi-diurnal lunar spring-tide would 
be shown as great as one-third of a foot, or four inches, for the periods of 
highest tides. 

The time of low water, and the relative times of duration of the flood and 
ebb tides, are given only approximately. The extreme rise of the tide being 
so little, the precise time of the change from ebb to flood, and hence the 
duration of the flow of each, can only be accurately determined by numer- 
ous observations at short intervals of time, say three to five minutes apart, 
from about an hour before to an hour after the turn of the tide from ebb 
to flood. 

In conclusion, we offer the foregoing observations as solving the problem 
in question, and as proving the existence of a semi-diurnal lunar tidal-wave 
on Lake Michigan, and consequently on the other great fresh-water lakes of 
North America, whose coordinate of altitude at its summit is as much as .15 
to .254 of a foot, or from 1.8 to 3.048 inches, U. S. measure. 


ON THE PHENOMENON OF WAVES ON THE SURFACE OF MERCURY. 


Nothing can be more interesting than the rippling of water under certain 
circumstances. By the action of interference its surface is sometimes 
shivered into the most beautiful mosaic, shifting and trembling as if with a 
kind of visible music. When the tide advances over a sea-beach on a calm 
and sunny day, and its tiny ripples enter at various points the clear, shallow 
pools which the preceding tide had left behind, the little wavelets run and 
climb and cross each other, and thus form a lovely chasing, which has its 
counterpart in the lines of light converged by the ripples upon the sand 
underneath. When waves are skilfully generated in a vessel of mercury, 
and a strong light reflected from the surface of the metal is received upon a 
screen, the most beautiful effects may be observed. The shape of the vessel 
determines, in part, the character of the figures produced; in a circular dish 
of mercury, for example, a disturbance at the centre propagates itself in 


172 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


circular waves, which, after reflection, again encircle the centre. If the point 
of disturbance be a little removed from the centre, the intersections of the 
direct and reflected waves produce magnificent chasing. The luminous 
figure reflected from such a surface is exceedingly beautiful. When the 
mercury is lightly struck by a glass point, in a direction concentric with the 
circumference of the vessel, the lines of light run round the vessel in mazy 
coils, interlacing and unravelling themselves in the most wonderful manner. 
If the vessel be square, a splendid mosaic is produced by the crossing of the 
direct and reflected waves. Description, however, can give but a feeble idea 
of these exquisite effects. — Professor Tyndall. 


ON THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF WAVES. 


Mr. Thomas Stevenson, C. E.,in a communication to the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh, states that he had found on one of the Shetland Islands, 
exposed to the waves of the North Sea, or German Ocean, masses of rock 
weighing nine and a half tons and under, heaped together by the action of 
the waves, at the level of no less than sixty-two feet above the sea; and 
others, ranging from six to thirteen tons, were found to have been quarried 
out of their positions in situ, at levels of from seventy to seventy-four feet 
above the sea; another block, of seven and one-sixteenth tons, at the level 
of twenty feet above the sea, had been quarried out and transported to a 
distance of seventy-three feet, from 8.S.E. to N.N.W., over opposing abrupt 
faces as much as seven feet in height. 

Mr. 8. further stated that, as the result of observation, he was of the 
opinion that the presence of mud on the sea bottom, at any depth, might be 
taken as a certain proof that the agitation originating at the surface had 
ceased to be appreciable. If the geological formation did not produce a 
clayey deposit, or if strong submarine currents existed, the absence of mud 
might afford no proof of the magnitude of the waves; but its presence in shoal 
water may be relied on as indicating with certainty that, in whatever locality 
it is found, there must be small disturbance at the surface, or, in other words, 
that there cannot be a heavy sea. 


SEEING THE EARTH’S ANNUAL MOTION. 


The pendulum experiment of Mr. Foucault, by which the diurnal motion 
of the earth was made visible, has been followed by a contrivance of M. 
Fitzeau, to exhibit the annual motion, which cannot, however, be of so 
popular a character; nor does it admit of simple explanation. By directing 
a telescope east and west at the time of the solstices, and viewing the rota- 
tion of the plane of polarization of a ray of light by means of a special 
apparatus which it contained, he observed a small movement, only to be 
accounted for by the annual motion of the earth. 

Seeing the Earth’s Diurnal Motion. —M. Perrot, of Paris, exhibits the diur- 
nal motion of the earth by means of a bucket, with a small hole exactly in 
the centre of its bottom. The bucket is filled with water and some light 
powder strewn upon its surface, which shows the direction of the current 
produced by the escape of the water through the orifice described. This 
current is seen to follow a curve considerably to the right of the straight 
line it would take if the earth were standing still, and which is accounted 
for by its rotation. The action of the earth’s rotation, he thinks, is also 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 173 


traceable in the course of rivers, and their frequent pressure upon their 
right banks. 


ON THE POSSIBILITY OF STUDYING THE EARTH’S INTERNAL STRUC- 
TURE FROM PHENOMENA OBSERVED AT ITS SURFACE. 


Professor Hennessy, in a paper on the above subject, read before the 
British Association, 1869, considered the possibility of obtaining results from 
the comparison of the level surface, usually called the earth’s surface by 
astronomers and mathematicians, with the geological surface which would 
be presented if the earth were stripped of its fluid coating. At present the 
number of unknown quantities in an inquiry as to the earth’s internal struc- 
ture was greater than the number of conditions; but, by knowing the true 
surface, and adopting the results of established physical and hydrostatical 
laws relative to the supposed internal fluid mass, we should be able to estab- 
lish as many equations as we have unknown quantities, and thus obtain a 
solution. 

Professor Stevely stated, that the exact spheroidal form of the earth, and 
the direction of gravity at each part of its surface, were not so completely 
determined as the remarks of Professor Hennessy would lead a person to 
suppose. Very interesting papers, printed in the last volume of the Trans- 
actions of the Royal Society, by Colonel Sir Henry James and Captain Clarke, 
had shown conclusively that not only did the spheroidal form of the earth, 
as deduced from the great Ordnance Survey of the British Islands, differ 
somewhat from that considered as most suitable to the form of the earth, as 
derived from a comparison of all observations; but even particular localities 
had the plumb-line so affected by local circumstances that the forms, as 
deduced from particular portions of the survey, differed sensibly from one 
another. Thus, the plumb-line near Edinburgh was found to be affected 
not only by the proximity to Arthur’s Seat and the Calton Hill, but even 
the defect of matter in the Frith of Forth, and the excess in the distant Port- 
land Hills, were shown to exercise important influences. 

Colonel Sir H. James showed, by various examples, that the method of 
grouping the measurements of different countries, proposed by Mr. Hennessy, 
would not, in the present state of these measurements, lead to the exact 
results he supposed. He then pointed out circumstances not only respecting 
the Russian measurements, but even the French, which would make a 
reéxamination of them not only desirable but necessary. 


NEW METHODS OF DETERMINING SPECIFIC GRAVITY. 


Until a few years ago the determination of the specific gravity of solids 
was conducted on one of these two principles: either by finding the loss of 
weight a body suffered on being immersed in water (its absolute weight being 
known), with the aid of the hydrostatic balance or Nicholson’s areometer, 
or by determining, by means of a balance, the quantity of liquid displaced 
by the substance in question; the vessel used being a little flask holding a 
certain weight of water (one thousand grains). 

Since the general introduction of the volumetric assay, and with it of 
graduated cylinders, the thought lay very near, in determining the specific 
gravity of dry substances, to measure instead of weighing the quantity of 
liquid displaced. F. Mohr has demonstrated that by far the simplest plan is 

15* 


174 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to measure the volume of water displaced; and his method is applicable to 
any other liquid, as alcohol, benzine, etc., since it is only with volumes, and 
not weights, that the calcuiations are made. 

Three different modifications of this principle are in use, of which we give 
the outline. One is to fill a test-tube, which forms a straight cylinder, and is 
graduated, with a liquid in which the substance to be examined is insoluble, 
to note the height of the liquid, and to weigh the whole. The substance, in 
coarse powder, is next thrown in, the height of the fluid again noted, and 
the whole re-weighed. The two notations and weighings give the data to 
determine the specific gravity. 

The second mode is especially adapted for bodies which, on account of 
size or shape, cannot be introduced into a graduated cylinder. A strip of 
wood, through which is stuck a pin, blackened at the point, is laid overa 
beaker-glass, which is then filled with water until the surface of the latter 
just touches the point of the pin. After introducing the substance, the water 
is drawn up into a graduated pipette until reduced to the same level, —even 
with the point of the pin. The volume of the water measured in the pipette 
shows that of the substance. 

The third modification is intended for technical purposes more particularly. 
The apparatus consists of a half-gallon glass cylinder, provided with a 
tubulus at the lower end, through which passes, on the outside, a bent glass 
tube to about half the height of the cylinder, where it is bent at two right 
angles, ending in a fine opening, beneath which is afterwards placed a grad- 
uated cylinder. Water is poured into the large cylinder until it commences 
to run from the fine opening; when this ceases, the graduated cylinder is 
put in its place, and the substance, previously weighed, gently introduced 
into the large vessel. The waier rises, and the quantity corresponding to the 
volume displaced will run from the glass tube and be measured in the grad- 
uated cylinder. We may here notice a mode of determining the specilic 
gravity of such substances as potatoes, which is in general use among the 
potato distillers of Northern Germany, to guide them in the valuation of 
the percentage of starch, which stands in some proportion to the specific 
gravity of the potato. A saturated solution of common salt is prepared, 
and the potatoes placed in it; they will swim on top uniil the density of the 
salt liquor is reduced by water, which is added until they are suspended in 
the solution, but do not sink to the bottom. The specific gravity of the 
diluted solution is then taken with a common areometer, and is the same as 
that of the potatoes. 


JAPANESE SCIENCE. 


A recent correspondent from Japan describes an ingenious method practised 
in that country for getting water from the bottom of a deep lake. For this 
purpose a cone-shaped earthenware bottle was employed, having a hole at its 
apex and a very small one at the broad part, which was stopped by a gum 
soluble in water. The bottle was then sunk, apex downwards, by means of 
a weight and a line, and allowed to remain about a quarter of an hour at the 
bottom of the lake, by which time the gum was dissolved and entrance for 
the water obtained, the air being forced out through a little hole at the 


bottom. It was then drawn up, and the hole at the bottom plugged with a 
tiny wooden peg. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 175 


ON THE MOVEMENTS OF FLUIDS IN POROUS BODIES. 


Among the topics of scientific interest which awaken attention at present, 
is the research of Jamin, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, upon the 
equilibrium and movement of fluids in porous bodies. The new results at 
which he has arrived afford an explanation of the ascent of the sap in vege- 
tables without the necessity of recourse to the vital force. It is apparently 
a question of capillarity only. 

Jamin has applied the new facts which ‘he has discovered to the construc- 
tion of an apparatus composed entirely of inorganic materials, but showing 
in its structure a great analogy with vegetables. This apparatus has the 
property of raising water, as trees do, to a height greater than that attained 
by.means of atmospheric pressure, from a moist soil, whence the water is 
constantly drawn to the factitious leaves, where it is continually evaporated. 

Reduced to its most simple form, this apparatus is composed of a block of 
some well-dried porous substance, as chalk, lithographic stone, etc., or a 
porous battery cell filled with a powder well rammed in, white chalk for 
instance, oxide of- zinc, or even with earth. A manometer is imbedded in 
the interior of the mass, and the whole is plunged in a vessel full of water. 
The water immediately penetrates its pores and drives out the air, which, 
collecting in the interior, exercises a pressure upon the manometer amount- 
ing with oxide of zinc to five atmospheres, and with starch it exceeds six 
atmospheres. This is not the limit of the greatest possible pressure; Jamin 
makes known the causes which diminish it in these cases, and proves that 
the water is forced into porous bodies with a foree which he calls 7, and 
which is equal to that of a considerable number of atmospheres. A tube 
1.20 metres long, filled with plaster and terminated at the summit by an 
evaporating surface, is inserted by its base into a reservoir closed and filled 
with water; a vacuum is caused, measured by fifteen or twenty millimetres 
of mercury, or by two hundred or two hundred and seventy millimetres of 
water; and the water appears even at the upper extremity of the tube — 
which proves porous bodies are able to raise water higher than can be done 
by atmospheric pressure. These facts cannot be explained by the ordinary 
laws of capillary attraction, since these bodies are not formed of impermea- 
ble tubes, but of corpuscles in juxtaposition, separated by small empty 
spaces. Jamin has therefore submitted the problem to the calculus, and has 
come to results, of which we mention the following :— 

If, in a damp porous body, the water is compressed by a power of several 
atmospheres, it can congeal only at a temperature below 0° C.! Consequently 
old wood is able to resist frost, while young shoots, being less dense, are 
unable to do so. 

Since water, in filtering through a porous body, is compressed as it enters, 
and dilates again as it runs out, it should exhibit electric currents and many 
other phenomena. 

The theory cannot be applied to non-homogeneous porous bodies. In the 
extended memoir which he has prepared, Jamin discusses the complicated 
results which may be occasioned by irregularity of structure; he makes an 
application of it to wood, and shows that the interior pressure must be aug- 


1 This fact has just been demonstrated by Mr. Sorby for water contained in capil- 
lary tubes of a small diameter. 


176 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


mented in the denser tissues; that the air must come from the larger tubes, 
which cannot serve for the ascent of the sap. 

It is plain that the evident tendency of all these experiments is to explain 
the ascent of the sap in vegetables by capillarity. The idea is not new, but 
it has not been hitherto fully admitted, notwithstanding the experiments 
which have been heretofore made. 

Jamin gives it probability in showing by decisive experiments that porous 
bodies exercise a capillary action superior to the pressure of the atmosphere; 
further, he gives the physical theory of capillarity in porous bodies, and 
succeeds in calculating the phenomena of the movements of liquids in trees. 
— Correspondence of M. Nickles with Silliman’s Journal, May, 1860. 


% STRENGTH OF ICE. 


Recent experiments in Germany show that when the thickness of ice is 
an inch and a half, it will just bear the weight of a single man; when about 
three inches and a half, it will bear detachments of infantry, with their ranks 
rather wide apart; with a thickness of four and four-tenths inches, eight- 
pounders can be conveyed over it on sledges; five and two-tenths inches will 
bear twelve-pounders; eight inches will bear twenty-four-pounders; and a 
thickness of twelve inches will bear almost any weight. 


SHOWER OF ICE. 


Captain Blakiston, in a letter to General Sabine, which has been communi- 
cated to the Royal Society, dated H. M. S. Simoon, Singapore, 22d of 
February, 1850, gives an interesting account of a shower of ice which fell 
upon the ship. He says: “On the 14th of January, when two days out 
from the Cape of Good Hope, about three hundred miles S.S.E. of it, in 
latitude 38° 53! S., longitude 20° 45’ E., we encountered a heavy squall, with 
rain, at ten A.M., lasting one hour, the wind shifting suddenly from east to 
north (true). During the squall there were three vivid flashes of lightning, 
one of which was very close to the ship, and at the same time a shower of 
ice fell, which lasted about three minutes. It was not hail, but irrezular- 
shaped pieces of solid ice, of different dimensions, up to the size of half a 
brick. The squall was so heavy that the topsails were obliged to be let go. 
There appears to have been no previous indication of this squall, for the 
barometer at six P.M. on the two previous days had been at 30.00, the ther- 
mometer 70°; at eight A.M. on the 14th the barometer marked 29.82, the 
thermometer 70°; at ten A.M., the time of the squall, 29.85, the thermometer 
70°; and at one p.M., when the weather had cleared, wind north (true), 29.76, 
thermometer 69°; after which it fell slowly and steadily during the remainder 
of the day and following night. As to the size of the pieces of ice which 
fell, two, which were weighed after having melted considerably, were three 
and a half and five ounces respectively; while I had one piece given me, 
a good quarter of an hour after the squall, which would only just go 
into an ordinary tumbler; and one or two persons depose to having seen 
pieces the size of a brick. On examining the ship’s sails afterwards they 
were found to be perforated in numerous places with small holes. A very 
thick glass cover to one of the compasses was broken. Although several 
persons were struck, and some knocked down on the deck, fortunately no 
one was seriously injured.” 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 177 


ELASTICITY OF IRON. 


At a recent meeting of the London Pharmaceutical Society, Mr. Appold 
showed the following interesting experiment, illustrative of the elasticity of 
iron. A stout iron ring was provided, several inches in diameter, and of 
such a substance as to apparently prevent the possibility of its form being 
in the slightest degree affected by the mere muscular force of one man; an 
iron rod was placed across the interior of the ring, and fitted in with suf- 
ficient tightness to retain its position without other support. Then, placing 
the apparatus horizontally on a table, by merely pressing with the fingers 
upon the outside of the ring, in a direction transverse to that occupied by 
the rod, the latter dropped through; proving that a certain amount of alter- 
ation had really been effected in the form of the ring by the slight pressure 
applied. 


METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE ANCIENTS TO MOVE, HAUL, AND RAISE 
STONES OF UNUSUAL DIMENSIONS. 


The following article, translated by J. Bennet, C. E., — Rondelet’s “ Art of 
Building,’ —we find in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, November, 
1860 : — 

The immense ruins of the ancient edifices of Egypt bear witness to the 
taste which the Egyptians had for the grand and durable; the blocks used 
for their construction were of enormous size. Herodotus speaks of an edi- 
fice which formed a part of the Temple of Latona, at Buto, whose walls 
were formed of a single rock 52.8 feet long by as much in height. The 
ceiling or covering of this edifice was also a single block with 5.28 feet 
thickness. 

In another place he says that Amasis ordered to be transported from the 
Isle of Eléphantine to the town of Sais, twenty days’ sail distant, a structure 
formed of a single block of stone; its exterior length was 27.72 feet by 18.48 
wide, and 10.56 feet high. The interior measured 24.86 feet in length, by 
15.84 in breadth, by 6.6 in height. Two thousand men were employed three 
years in its transportation. The mass of this last structure, deducting 
the empty space within, was 2,822 cubic feet; and its weight was 458,744 
pounds, on the supposition that the rock was formed of the same granite as 
the obelisk. 

As for the other structure, which formed a part of the temple of Latona, at 
Buto, the Greek text of Herodotus seems to describe the four walls as being 
formed of a single block hollowed like a trough. In this case, it would have 
required a block of 147,200 cubic feet, with a weight of 24,260,500 pounds; 
and supposing it was not transported until after being hollowed, its weight 
would still have been 9,944,750 pounds. 

The transportation of so heavy a mass and of so great volume would 
appear as an inconceivable difficulty, even by water, on account of the im- 
mense size of the vessel or platform required to keep afloat so great a load, 
which was twenty times that transported by Amasis. The difficulties of 
unloading and moving upon the ground so great a mass would seem to be 
insurmountable, as it would not be possible to find machines or rollers strong 
enouvh to bear such a weight without crushing. 

The Count of Carbury, who had charge of the transportation of the rock 
to St. Petersburg which constitutes the pedestal of the statue of Peter the 


178 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. ‘ 


Great, and whose weight was only 3,254,000 pounds, said that it was impos- 
sible for him to make use of rollers; even iron ones were insufficient. Balls 
of wrought and cast iron, which he tried to substitute for them, were 
flattened and broken, as well as the cushions of the same metal in which 
these balls rolled; only those made of a mixture of copper, tin, and calamine 
could resist the pressure. Still, as we cannot contradict a matter which 
Herodotus says he saw and regarded with wonder, we must believe that the 
walls of this structure were hollowed out of a mass of rock found upon the 
spot. This conjecture is all the more probable, as Herodotus does not men- 
tion where this enormous block came from, nor the mode of its transportation. 

As for the stone which formed the upper part of the structure, it is evident 
that it must have been taken from another block, and that it must have 
been moved and raised above the walls. It was 52.8 feet long by as many 
broad, with a depth of 5.28 feet, making, all trimmed, a mass of 14,720 
cubic feet, and a weight of 1,984,950 pounds, supposing the stone to be of a 
mean hardness with that used for most of the temples and for the steps of 
the pyramids. 

A block of such dimensions must have been moved in the same position it 
was to have when laid. The operation required a plane and solid surface of 
great extent; and as wood was scarce in Egypt, we may presume, according 
to what Herodotus said in relation to the great pyramid of Cheops, that in 
these extraordinary circumstances the custom of the Egyptians was to eon- 
struct large causeways and inclined planes of cut stone, upon which they 
hauled the enormous stones which they prided themselves on using for the 
construction of their edifices. These means, which would be expensive with 
us, were but a small matter with them, by reason of the great number of 
men employed upon their works, the small wages of the laborers, and the 
insignificant cost of the materials. 

When they had to move round and unwrought masses of granite, such as 
are found in the quarries of Egypt, they were turned over or rolled by the 
force of men. In many places, far distant from the quarries, are found 
masses of granite whose transportation appears to have been interrupted by 
some unforeseen circumstance. 

As for the blocks which do not come in this kind of transportation, and 
whose surfaces were plane, as that which served for the covering of the 
temple at Buto, and the monolithe structure of Amasis, we believe that they 
made use of rollers and capstans, the most simple and ancient machines, the 
most powerful and speedy in their effects. To give our ideas upon this, we 
report the result of an experiment made upon this subject with a cut stone 
weighing eleven hundred and sixty-five pounds. 

To drag this stone upon a horizontal surface of the same material, and 
coarsely cut, required eight hundred and eighteen pounds. 

The same drawn upon pieces of wood exacted a force of seven hundred 
and three pounds. . 

The same placed upon a wood platform, and drawn upon wood, required a 
force of six hundred and fifty-four pounds. But soaping the two surfaces 
which slid upon each other, there was only needed one hundred and ninety- 
six pounds. 

This stone put upon rollers 3.2 inches diameter, and set in motion upon a 
surface of the same material, required only a force of 36.68 pounds; the 
same rolling upon pieces of wood yicided to an effort of 30 pounds; and 
when the rollers were put between two pieces of wood 233 pounds sufficed. 


° NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 179 


‘ 


It follows from this experiment that to draw a | rough stone upon a firm 
and smooth bottom Bee is needed a little ov er 2 of its weight; 3 2, if the 
surface is of wood; 3, if the movement is made of axope upon wood; and if 
the two sliding surfaces of wood are soaped, but 4. But if we use rollers 
placed pauemaily between the ie and ground there will be required a 
little over as of the weight, and j’5 if they roll upon wood; and, finally, if 
they roll Beween two smooth ase surfaces there will be needed but 
about the = sy of the weight. 

Still it is proper to ae that as woods compress under great loads, the 
rollers made of this material are subject to a change of form, to be crushed, 
and to sinking in the pieces between which they are placed. This produces 
a friction, whose effect increases with the load. To raise the obelisk at the 
square of St. Peter’s, in Rome, which, with all its fixtures, weighed 829,250 
pounds, there were required forty capstans, and to draw it upon a horizontal 
plane with rollers placed between two wooden surfaces it only needed four; 
whence it follows in this case that the force was but the +), part of the 
weight, while the experiment above cited gives a little over the =, part. 
But Fontana, who superintended this operation, observed that most of the 
rollers, which were seventy in number, were crushed, and that the others 
sank into the pieces of wood between which they were placed. 

To have the full benefit of the rollers they should be as incompressible as 
the surfaces between which they move. Granite rollers, between surfaces 
of the same material, to prevent breaking should be very short, and their 
number great, to have as little of the load as possible on each. The length 
should not be over one and a half diameters. When the stone has consider- 
able width they must be set in many rows. This method, if practicable, 
would have been preferable to the balls which the Count of Carbury used 
for the transportation of the rock which served for the base of the equestrian 
statue of Peter the Great; they required the 1; part of the weight. 

From the results of these experiments, oan the observations to which they 
give rise, we may calculate the force required to transport the stone which 
formed the monolithe structure at Sais, and the covering of the temple at 
Buto. 

Experience with works has taught us that a man of medium strength, and 
used to work like those employed by the ancients, can carry a load equal to 
his weight, and haul one and a half times as much; so that for the stone 
cover of the temple at Buto, whose weight we have estimated at 1,984,950 
pounds, there would be required 10,000 men to draw it upon a smooth and 
solid ground; 9000 to draw it upon a surface formed of pieces of wood; 
8333 if the stone was put upon a wood platform and drawn upon wood; and 
only 2500 men if care was taken to soap the two surfaces which slid upon 
each other. 

The block being 52.8 feet wide, the men could easily be disposed in forty 
rows, which for the first case would require 250 in each row, in case they 
were equal, and much less if they diverged; 225 for the second; 208 for the 
third; and 623 for the fourth: the last is the most practicable method. 

The great breadth of this stone and its weight would make it impossible to 
use wooden rollers. As for those of granite, if the ground were firm and 
smooth enough to make use of them, 300 men, or seven and a half rows, 
would have sufficed to move the load. But it is not likely that this method 
was adopted, on account of its great expense. It is much more probable 
that they made use of capstans. 


180 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. - 


Supposing a simple capstan, traversed by two levers, with a mean length 
at the point of application of the resultant foree of ten times the diameter of 
the drum, each man makes an effort which may be valued at 5392 pounds. 
If twelve men work each capstan, their effort will be 6474 pounds, which 
gives in the first case, when a force equal to two-thirds of the load is required, 
2400 men and 200 capstans; for the second case, 2160 men and 180 capstans; 
for the third, 2000 men and 166 capstans; and for the fourth, 600 men and 50 
capstans. 

By the use of pulleys and muffles the number of men and capstans may 
be reduced one-half or a quarter. 

The results here shown indicate the force necessary to move the block upon 
a horizontal plane; but as it had to be raised above the walls of the temple 
which it served to cover, in raising it upon an inclined plane it is evident that 
the force must be increased in the ratio of its inclination. 


UNIFORM MUSICAL PITCH. 


The committce appointed a year ago by a general meeting of musicians, 
and others interested in music, assembled in London, to consider the subject 
of the present state of musical pitch in England,! have recently reported, 
substantially as follows : — 

The committee found, after a little inquiry, that their attention would have 
to be directed to three principal points: —1. Whether a uniform musical pitch 
was desirable. 2. Whether a uniform musical pitch was possible. 3. Sup- 
posing a uniform pitch to be desirable and possible, what that pitch should 
DE. 

1. With the first of these considerations the committee was not long occu- 
pied, all testimony going to prove the frequent inconvenience to which musi- 
cal performers, vocal and instrumental, musical instrument-makers, musical 
directors, and even instructed hearers, were alike put by variations in the 
pitch, whether of individual instruments or of entire orchestras. The com- 
mittee came early to a unanimous resolution that a uniform pitch was desirable. 

2. The second question, ‘‘ whether a uniform pitch was possible,’ was 
not found to admit of so ready an answer as the first. That a uniform pitch 
is never for any length of time maintained is well known to all practical 
musicians. The effects of temperature on musical instruments are so great 
and so rapid, that a difference in pitch of at least a quarter of a tone has 
often been remarked between the beginning and the end of the same concert; 
and instruments not required at the beginning of a performance are fre- 
quently tuned to a higher pitch in order to meet this anticipated elevation. 
In theatres, instruments to be used on the stage are systematically tuned 
sharper than those to be used in the orchestra, to compensate for the differ- 
ence of temperature before and behind the scenes. Still, though the main- 
tenance of a certain pitch may be difficult, or even impossible, the definition 
of itis not. A point of departure, if nothing more, would be in the highest 
degree convenient to musicians. No great practical inconvenience has ever 
been found to result from any change of pitch possible during a single per- 
formance. It is against the gradual elevation, consequent on the absence of 
any recognized standard, that musical practice requires a security. Physical 
science is, happily, enabled to afford this, and to bring to the aid of musical 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1860, pp. 188-191. 


." NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 181 
art more than one process by which such a standard may be adjusted. Musi- 
cal pitch is not a matter of mere comparison. A sound is not merely acute 
or grave in relation to another; its pitch is capable of exact measurement, 
and that measurement once recorded, it may be reproduced at any distance 
of time, without reference to any other sound whatever. In short, the num- 
ber of vibrations per second due to a given sound can be ascertained with 
the same certainty as the number of square yards on a given estate, or the 
number of tons burthen of a given merchantman. Several methods of 
counting vibrations have been adopted by men of science at different periods, 
by one or other of which the pitch of certain notes (generally either C or A) 
in this or that musical establishment has been recorded; so that a body of 
evidence exists, in addition to, and independent of, that of tuning-forks, bells, 
and other instruments least susceptible of change, by which the variations of 
pitch, at different times and in many different places, may be ascertained 
with certainty. Under these circumstances the committee came to a resolu- 
tion that a uniform pitch was not only desirable but possible. It remained 
for them to consider “‘ what that pitch should be.” 

3. On this question such very wide difference of opinion was expressed, 
and, indeed, such very conflicting evidence was adduced, that the committee 
concluded to make no formal recommendation. They say, however, that, on 
grounds of abstract propriety, they were inclined to recommend the pitch of 
C 512 for general adoption, were there not certain practical considerations in 
opposition to any change. Thus, they say, it is certain that a change from 
the present pitch of C 546 to C 512 —a change of about a semitone — could 
not be made without great inconvenience and pecuniary loss to the body 
with whom the adjustment of the pitch practically rests, —our orchestral 
performers. Such a change, too, would fall heavily on musical instrument 
makers, probably to the extent, in many cases, of rendering the greater por- 
tion of their existing stock valueless. This objection, it is thought by some 
even of those who are most anxious for a great depression of the present 
pitch, would be fatal to any proposition which did not in some way meet it. 

In conclusion, the committee cali attention to the suggestions made by the 
congress of musicians which assembled at Stuttgard, in 1834, which body 
recommended a pitch of 528 for C, = 440 for A, basing their calculation on a 
thirty-two feet orzan-pipe, giving thirty-three vibrations per second instead 
of thirty-two. The following would be the scale at this pitch —the only one 
yet proposed which gives all the sounds in whole numbers : — 


Cc D E F G A B C 
264 297 330 352 396 440 495 6528 


This pitch, of which the C is sixteen vibrations per second higher than that 
of C 512, and eighteen vibrations lower than the C at the present pitch (of 
546), is as near as possible half-way between the two latter, and, therefore, a 
quarter of a tone above the one and a quarter of a tone below the other. 
To lower the stringed instruments to this pitch would obviously be attended 
with little difficulty. Depression to the extent of a quarter of a tone is said 
to be easy with the brass instruments and possible with the wooden wind 
instruments — the flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons —now in use. Few 
organs exist of higher pitch than the Stuttgard, and the raising of those 
which have been tuned to C 512 would not be attended with serious difficulty. 
The Stuttgard pitch, then, if not the very best that could be conceived, may 
be regarded as the one which, with many recommendations, would have the 
16 


182 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


best chance of attaining the general assent of contemporary musicians. 
Though higher than the pitch of 512, the Philharmonic pitch, or the diapason 
normal, the Stuttgard pitch is but a few vibrations higher than the last two 
of these, — one of which experience has proved to be a good pitch for instru- 
mental music. It is a quarter of a tone below the present pitch, by general 
consent voted intolerably high. Its adoption would involve little, if any, 
inconvenience or pecuniary loss to instrumental performers or makers of 
musical instruments. It would, therefore, be likely to meet the support of 
the majority of those interested in the question of pitch. 


INTENSIFICATION OF SOUND: THE PHONOSCOPE AND HYDRO- 
PHONE. 


Dr. Scott Alison has read to the Royal Society a paper “On the Intensifica- 
tion of Sound through Solid Bodies by the interposition of water between 
them and the distal extremities of Hearing-Tubes.”’ The author gives an ac- 
count of various experiments which he has recently made on sounds proceed- 
ing through solid bodies. He has found that sounds which are faint, when 
heard by a hearing-tube applied directly to solid sounding bodies, become 
augmented when water is interposed between these bodies and the distal 
extremity of the hearing-tube. He has been able, by the employment of 
water, to hear the sound of a solid body, such as a table, which without 
this medium has been inaudible. Experiments have been made upon water 
in various amounts and in different conditions. Thus a very thin layer, a 
mere ring round the edge of the hearing-tube, masses of water in larger or 
smaller vessels, and a bag of water, have been employed. The results have 
been the same as regards augmentation. The degree of augmentation was 
greatest when the hearing-tube was immersed freely in water. In experi- 
menting upon water in vessels, it was found necessary to close the extremity 
of the tube to be immersed, by tying over it a piece of bladder or thin India- 
rubber; for the entrance of water into the interior interfered greatly with 
the augmentation. 

The effect of water in augmenting sound is materially reduced if even a 
small amount of solid material be interposed between the water employed 
and the mouth of the hearing-tube. A piece of wood, not much thicker 
than a paper-cutter, materially interferes with the augmenting power of 
water. The augmentation of sound thus obtained by water seems to be due 
to the complete fitting of the liquid on the solid body, and also round the 
mouth of the hearing-tube, whereby the column of air is thoroughly en- 
closed; also to the less impediment to the vibrations of the instrument when 
held in contact with water than when held in contact with a solid body, the 
water yielding in a greater degree than a solid. 

The mode of judging of the augmentation was twofold: first, one sensa- 
tion was compared with another perceived by the same ear, the one sensa- 
tion following immediately upon the other; second, the differential stetho- 
phone was employed, by which two impressions are simultaneously made 
upon the two ears; in which case, if one impression be materially greater 
than the other, sound is perceived in that ear only on which the greater 
impression is made. To obtain the advantage of the differential stetho- 
phone, or “ Phonoscope,” as it might here perhaps be more correctly desig- 
nated, when sounds at some distance from the ear were being examined, its 
length was increased by the addition of long tubes of India-rubber. 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 183° 


Experiments were made upon other liquids besides water, such as mercury 
and ether. ‘ 

Other materials besides liquids were found to afford a similar intensifi- 
cation of sound from solid bodies, such as lamine of gutta-percha or of 
India-rubber and sheets of writing paper, but the amount of augmentation 
was less. : 

The hearing-tubes employed were various. Many of the experiments were 
performed with the author’s ardinary differential stethophone, an instrument 
described in the Philosophical Magazine for November, 1858. India-rubber 
tubes fitted with ivory ear-knobs, and with wooden or glass cups (the size 
of the cup or object-extremity of ordinary stethoscopes), and having an 
ear-extremity to pass into the meatus, and brass tubes, were also in turn 
employed. Tubes closed at their distal extremity with solid material, such 
as glass, did not answer so well as those closed with membrane. 

The water-bag increases the impression conveyed to the ear by the wooden 
stethoscope, if it be placed between the flat ear-piece and the external ear. 
It may be employed alone to reinforce sound. The name of Hydrophone has 
been given to it. 

A postscript is added, in which the author records an experiment made on 
the bank of the Serpentine river. A sound produced upon the land was 
heard at a point in the water when it could not be heard at an equal distance 
on the ground, if the two limbs of the differential stethophone were employed 
simultaneously. 

The sensation upon the ear, connected by means of a hollow tube with 
water in sonorous undulations, was found to be much greater than that 
upon the ear connected with the same water by means of a solid rod. When 
both tube and solid rod were employed simultaneously, sound was heard 
in that ear only supplied with the tube. 


ON THE REGISTRATION OF SOUND VIBRATIONS. 


The Abbé Laborde has recently devised the following plan for registering 
the vibrations of sound. To the ceiling of a room are fixed two rings, some 
six feet apart, and to these are suspended two wooden rules, about eight 
feet long. Their lower ends are fastened into a block or wood, which is 
connected with a pendulum, so that the vibrations may be registered on a 
piece of glass, the face of which is covered with smoke black. From this 
photographic impressions may be multiplied, if desirable, to any extent. 
This apparatus is much less costly than any other hitherto made for regis- 
tering sounds, and is interesting, since it is an aid toward the invention of 
machines which shall gradually advance from registering sounds to regis- 
tering syllables and words. As soon as the wit of man has invented a 
machine as delicate as the human ear, we can have reporting machines. 
The idea is certainly far less astonishing than that of the daguerreotype 
before its invention. If the vibrations of light, so much finer than those of 
sound, are made to register themselves with such wonderful accuracy, why 
may not the vibrations of sound be made to do the same! 


FIGURES PRODUCED BY SOUND. 


If a drinking glass, or a funnel of about three inches diameter at the edge, 
be filled with water, alcohol, or ether, and a strong note be made by draw- 
é 


184 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ing a violin-bow on the glass, a sound-figure will be formed on the surface 
of the liquid, consisting of nothing but drops of liquid. If the vessel gives 
the fundamental note, the figure forms a four-rayed star, the ends of which 
extend to the four nodal points; but if the note which the vessel gives be 
the second higher, the star will be six-rayed; and if the vessel gives still 
higher tones, other more numerously rayed stars are produced. — Poggen- 
dorff’s Annalen. 


THE POWER OF A BIRD’S SONG. 


When we hear the song of a soaring lark, we may be sure that the entire 
atmosphere between us and the bird is filled with pulses, or undulations, or 
waves, as they are often called, produced by the little songster’s organ of voice. 
This organ is a vibrating instrument, resembling in principle the reed of a 
clarinet. Let us suppose that we hear the song of a lark, elevated toa 
height of five hundred feet in the air. Before this is possible, the bird must 
have agitated a sphere of air one thousand feet in diameter; that is to say, 
it must have communicated to 17,888 tons of air a motion sufficiently intense 
to be appreciated by our organs of hearing. — Prof. Tyndall. 


ON THE VELOCITY OF SOUND. 


It has generally been considered that sound moves at a uniform velocity of 
1,142 feet per second; and in every book on the subject rules are given by 
which the distance of any source of sound, such as a firearm or a flash of light- 
ning, may be ascertained by estimating the number of seconds and fractions of 
asecond which elapse between the ocularly-observed time of the occurrence 
of the phenomenon and the hearing of the sound which accompanies it. 
Doubtless many persons have in this manner amused themselves by esti- 
mating the distance off which certain violent lightning flashes must have 
been, and have taken comfort from the idea that, if a certain number of 
seconds have elapsed after the flash has taken place before the thunder is 
heard, they are safe from its effects; falling into the very common error of 
mistaking the cause for the effect. The Rev. S. Earnshaw has, however, 
been engaged in some extremely interesting mathematical investigations 
respecting the phenomenon of sound, and has arrived at the theoretical con- 
clusion that violent sounds are propagated far more rapidly than gentle 
sounds, and that therefore all reasoning upon the distance of the flash, based 
upon the lapse of time between it and the thunder, is fallacious. Many 
instances of this fact are adduced in corroboration of the theory, in which 
the clap of thunder followed immediately after the lightning, when, judging 
from the distance which the latter was from the observer, there should have 
been an interval of many seconds duration. These and similar instances 
have induced the above-named gentleman to enter upon a mathematical 
investigation of the theory of sound, and he arrives at the conclusion, con- 
trary to the hitherto universally received opinion, that there is no limit to 
the velocity with which a violent sound is transmissible through the atmos- 
phere, provided the phenomenon which produces the sound be sufficiently 
violent. Hence, it is probable that there is no sound which is propagated 
faster than a clap of thunder, its genesis being especially violent. This 
theory seems also capable of explaining the rumbling, rolling noise of thun- 
der. Itis only necessary to imagine that the sound at its origin is broken 
up, either by partial interruption or reficction, into several sounds of differ- 


a 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 185 


ent degrees of violence. They would thus be propagated with different 
degrees of rapidity, and would therefore not fall upon the ear, if it were at 
any distance off, with a sudden crash, but in a series of minor claps, or as a 
rattle. If this theory be true, the report of a cannon should travel faster 
than the human voice, and that of thunder faster than either. — London 
Photographic News. ~ 


CHROMO-TYPOGRAPHY. 


M. Rochette has devised a new method of printing the different colors used 
in this art. Instead of applying a series of plates or stones, each bearing 
one color, in the usual way, he arranges his plates upon a rotating platform, 
of smaller dimensions, but like those used on railways. Suppose four plates 
thus arranged with black, red, blue, and green, and a sheet of four pages, 
which it is desired to print, imposed upon them. One page will be printed 
in each color, and by turning the sheet a quarter round each time, the 
remaining colors will be printed in succession. This apparatus has a me- 
chanical contrivance to ensure accuracy of position; and, as the colors 
admit of super-position, green may be formed by successive printings of 
yellow and blue, orange by yellow and red, ete. 


ON THE SOLUTION OF ICE IN INLAND WATERS. 


In a paper read before the American Association for 1860, by Mr. B. F. 
Harrison, a theory to account for the sudden disappearance of ice in inland 
waters was presented, which was based upon a series of observations made 
upon a little lake in Connecticut, which is so hedged in that only the south 
and southwest winds blow upon it. It is not fed by any large stream, and 
has a small outlet. On the twenty-third day of January, 1860, he visited the 
lake, and found the ice ten or eleven inches thick. He found, at a station on 
the lake, the temperature of the water directly under the ice to be thirty-four 
degrees; three feet down, thirty-eight; twelve feet, forty-one; the bottom of 
the lake, forty-three and a half; mean temperature, thirty-eight and seven- 
eighths. On the sixth of March he found the ice disappearing very rapidly, 
as much as one-third disappearing during the two hours that he remained 
by the lake. The mean temperature of the lake on this date was forty-one 
and a half. The conclusion arrived at was, that the solution of the ice is 
caused by heating up the water from the bottom, since the warmth could 
not have been communicated from the atmosphere, its temperature being 
lower than the water. The mean temperature of the earth at a depth of 
twenty feet furnishes a vast magazine of heat, that is immediately effective 
as soon as the cold from the atmosphere ceases to be intense. 


THE GREAT PYRAMID.—WHY, AND WHEN, WAS IT BUILT? 


The above is the title of a volume recently published in London by John 
Taylor, a gentleman of an exceedingly original mind, and favorably known 
in literary and scientific circles. His researches and speculations, whether 
leading to any truthful result or no, will at least be found interesting and 
curious :— 

Of all the records of their existence, which the men of ages long gone 
by have left upon the face of the earth, none, perhaps, is so eminently calcu- 
lated to excite universal interest, or to give rise to enthusiastic speculation, 

16* 


186 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


as the pyramids of Egypt. It would scarcely be possible for even the least 
curious and impressionable of men to gaze with his own eyes upon those 
mighty masses, or even listen to the descriptions of them which have been 
given by numberless travellers, from the time of Herodotus down to the 
present day, without, when the first feeling of almost stupefied admiration 
had subsided, experiencing an irresistible impulse to ask the two questions 
which, in his present volume, Mr. Taylor attempts to answer. And of all 
possible methods of proceeding to the solution of these inevitable queries, 
that adopted by Mr. Taylor is certainly the most thoroughly trustworthy 
and reliable. It consists in placing, so to speak, the Great Pyramid itself in 
the witness-box, and, step by step, eliciting its history from its own mouth. 
Mr. Taylor has never himself visited the pyramids; but he deduces his con- 
clusions from a careful collation of the chief existing records on the subject, 
from the earliest period down to the present time. So far from considering 
his want of personal acquaintance with the object of his inquiry as likely to 
be in any degree prejudicial to its success, he is inclined to regard this cir- 
cumstance as a subject rather for congratulation than for regret. 

With regard to the first of the two questions propounded by Mr. Taylor, 
an immense majority of those who have inquired into the subject concur in 
the opinion that the pyramids of Egypt were designed as the burial-places of 
the kings by whom they were built. A long succession of travellers, from 
Strabo and Diodorus Siculus to Dr. Robinson and the Rey. A. P. Stanley, 
have agreed without hesitation in adopting this view. So long ago, however, 
as the commencement of the present century, a different theory was started 
by some of the scientific men who accompanied the French expedition to 
Egypt, viz., that the three largest pyramids were constructed on certain 
geometrical principles, and were intended to perpetuate the memory of the 
standard by which they were built. This hypothesis was very coldly received 
at the time of its first suggestion, and it was not till the publication, in 1840, 
of Colonel Howard Vyse’s researches on the pyramids that it attracted public 
notice to any appreciable degree; but it has at length found a zealous cham- 
pion in Mr. Taylor, who, by a careful examination of all existing records on 
the subject, endeavors to show that, when rightly understood, they tend, one 
and all, to its complete confirmation. Although he seems inclined to extend 
this theory to the two smaller pyramids of Gizeh, it is only in the case of the 
Great Pyramid that he prosecutes his inquiries in detail. Obviously, the 
first things to be done in such a case are to ascertain the exact dimensions 
of the pyramid in its perfect state, and to reconcile, in some reasonable 
manner, the conflicting measurements which have been assigned to it from 
time to time by various observers. The latter of these two objects Mr. 
Taylor effects with a great show of probability, by pointing out that it is 
only within a recent period that the true base of the pyramid has been 
reached, and that the smaller and earlier measurements were made at times 
when the lower tiers of the edifice were more or less covered up with sand 
and débris. With regard to the former point, it has long been suspected 
that the present condition of the pyramid is far from being that in which it 
was left by its builders, and that it was originally a perfect pyramid, with 
sharp angles and terminating in a point. This suspicion received a strong 
confirmation in 1799, when M. Le Pére and Colonel Coutelle, in surveying 
the platform on which the pyramid was founded, discovered at both the 
northeastern and northwestern angles a wide shallow socket, which seemed 
to have been designed for the reception of a corner-stone; and it was finally 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 187 


converted into a certainty in 1837, when Colonel Vyse discovered two of the 
casing-stones, actually zm situ, nearly in the centre of the northern face of 
the pyramid. The angle at which these casing-stones are inclined (51° 50/) 
and the length of the base (764 feet) being both known, the total height of 
the pyramid is easily ascertained, and all its dimensions are then satisfac- 
torily determined. They are as follows: 


Feet. Inches. 

Length of former base, including casing-stones, - 764 
Length of present base, . - - . = - 746 
Former height, including Pasengeeabeniess : : = 480) 29 
Present height, perpendicular, - Saves - ai: 450 2 9 
Former height, inclined, . . : : 2 emGil 
Present height, inclined, - - 568 3 
Width of pavement in front of Hpi ee oon in eats 

of northern side, . Z - A - < ages 6 


Thickness of paving-stones, . : : : : - Pad 
Acres. Roods. Poles. 

Former extent of base, . : : 2 als 1 22 

Present extent of base, . : - = alae 3 3 


The angle of the casing-stones being 51° 50’, and the base 764 feet, the 
height of the pyramid, supposing it to end in a point, would be 486 feet. 
“What reason,” asks Mr. Taylor, ‘‘can be assigned for the founders of the 
Great Pyramid giving it this precise angle, and not rather making each face 
an equilateral triangle? The only one we can suggest is, that they knew the 
earth to be a sphere; that they had measured off a portion of one of its 
great circles, and, by observing the motion of the heavenly bodies over the 
earth’s surface, had ascertained its circumference, and were now desirous of 
leaving behind them a record of that circumference as correct and imperish- 
able as it was possible for them to construct. They assumed the earth to 
be a perfect sphere, and as they knew that the radius of a circle must bear a 
certain proportion to its circumference, they then built a pyramid of sucha 
height, in proportion to its base, that its perpendicular would be equal to the 
radius of a circle equal in circumference to the perimeter of the base. How 
the thought occurred to them we cannot tell; but a more proper monument 
for this purpose could not have been devised than a vast pyramid with a 
square base, the vertical height of which pyramid should be the radius of 
a sphere in its circumference equal to the perimeter of the base. It was 
impossible to build a hemisphere of so large a size. In the form of a pyra- 
mid all these truths might be declared which they had taken so much pains 
to learn; and in that form the structure would be less liable to injury from 
time, neglect, or wantonness, than in any other.” 

Now, the exact angle which must be given to the face of a pyramid, in 
order to enable it to fulfil these conditions, is 51° 51’ 14’; to which the 
observed angle of 51° 50’ is as near an approach as the magnitude of the 
work would probably allow. As a further proof that this coincidence in the 
angles was not accidental, Mr. Taylor refers to the statement of Herodotus, 
which he gathered from the official guardians of the pyramid at the time of 
his visit, that “‘each face of the pyramid is eight plethra, and the height is 
equal.”” He concludes that this measurement refers, not to linear but to 
square measure; and that the statement signifies that the number of square 
feet in each face of the pyramid is equal to the square of the height. Now, 


188 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the angle of inclination necessary to ensure this proportion is 51° 497 46/7; 
which is again a very close approximation to the observed angle of 51° 50’. 
The proportion of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is 3.1415927 
to1. The perpendicular height or radius of the pyramid being 486 English 
feet, its diameter is 972 feet; and its perimeter is four times 764, or 3056 
feet. Taking the diameter as unity, we have 1000 feet of .972 of the English 
foot, and in the circumference 3144 of the same feet. The true proportion 
in a sphere would be 3141.5927 feet, about 23 feet less than the actual meas- 
ure. This foot of .972 of the English foot is precisely the larger Roman, or 
Italian, foot, whose connection with the pyramid measure is thus estab- 
lished. By a series of elaborate but very interesting calculations, Mr. Taylor 
shows that the different ancient feet with which we are acquainted, as well 
as the English foot, are similariy connected with the pyramid measures. 
Thus the foot of Drusus or of Diodorus Siculus, which is 1.0909 English feet, 
is contained 700 times in the length of the base of the pyramid, and 120 
million of times in the circumference of the earth, as given by Eratosthenes; 
and it is that measure of the circumference of which 363,636 feet constitute a 
degree. This is actually the length of the degree in the latitude of the Great 
Pyramid. The circumference of the earth being 120,000,000 Egyptian 
feet, the diameter would be about 38,200,000 feet, or 458,400,000 Egyptian 
inches, numbers which furnish no principle of unity as a measure of the 
diameter. If, however, we express the diameter of the earth in English, not 
in Egyptian, feet, we have 41,672,380 feet, or 500,068,560 inches; and the 
circumference is 130,908,000 English feet, or 1,570,896,000 inches. Doubling 
this last number, we have 3,141,792,000 I:nglish inches; and dividing 130,- 
908,000 by 3.141792 (instead of 3.141592) gives us 41,666,667 English feet, or 
000,000,000 English inches, for the diameter. Hence, at the building of the 
pyramid, the diameter of the earth was indicated by 1, when its circumfer- 
ence was represented by 3.141792 (the actual proportion of the diameter of a 
sphere to its circumference being 1 to 3.141592). These numbers are double 
the actual measure, which therefore allows 500,000,000 inches for the diame- 
ter, and 1,570,896,000 for the circumference. But these inches are English 
inches; whence Mr. Taylor concludes that the English inch was invented at 
this early period to express the 500 millionth part of the diameter of the earth. 
Not only all the ancient feet with which we are acquainted, but also all the 
cubits which we find mentioned in the Scriptures and elsewhere, are, accord- 
ing to Mr. Taylor, connected with the pyramid measure; but we have not 
space to detail the connection in each case. 

Having thus concluded, from the exterior measurements of the Great 
Pyramid, that it was designed as a record of the dimensions of the earth, it 
now remains to inquire what we can learn from its interior. ‘The only object 
as yet discovered inside the pyramid is an oblong coffer, shaped like a 
trough or hot-bath, hollowed with the greatest accuracy out of a solid block 
of porphyry, and placed in what is known as the King’s Chamber. This 
coffer has generally been regarded as designed for a sarcophagus. But, 
from a consideration of its dimensions, as recorded by Colonel Vyse, Mr. Tay- 
lor arrives at a very different conclusion. It is 78inches long, 26.5 wide, and 
34.5 deep; and its cubic content is consequently 71,311.5 inches. Now the 
cube of the Karnak cubit of 41.472 inches is 71,328.8, a number so near to 
that expressing the cubie content of the coffer, that Mr. Taylor concludes 
that the true capacity of the coffer is a cubic Karnak cubit, and that it is 
designed to be a standard measure of capacity. He traces its connection 


NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 189 


with the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman measures, and, finally, with those 
which are in use amongst us at the presentday. This portion of his inquiry 
is so curious and interesting as to deserve extraction :— 

“But no nation, ancient or modern, is so remarkable for having preserved 
a close agreement with the pyramid coffer as our own. First, our peck of 
wheat, like the hecteus and modius, is contained 128 times in that coffer; 
secondly, thirty-two of our bushels of wheat, or four of our quarters of 
wheat, would fill a vessel of that same capacity if we had one still in use; 
but, thirdly, though a vessel of this capacity is not in existence with us at 
present, we must have had such a measure in earlier times, since we make 
daily reference to it: for, when we say eight bushels of wheat are a quarter, 
we affirm it to be a fourth part of some entire measure, which is exactly 
equal in capacity to the pyramid coffer. 

“‘This measure was our chaldron, in Latin caldarium, a hot bath; and 
though our measure was never used as a bath, we cannot wonder that such 
a name was given to the vessel, if it resembled, as it probably did, the pyra- 
mid coffer, for that is made exactly in the form of a hot bath. But no other 
nation, as far as we can ascertain, has ever made use of such a measure of 
capacity besides the English, and given it a name so exactly corresponding 
with that which would be a true description of the pyramid coffer. The 
laver of the Scriptures represents the same vessel in size and shape, but it 
was not used as a measure of capacity. The Roman labrum, which is the 
same word as laver, was applied to a bath in which a person may recline or 
bathe; as also to a wine-vat, but not te a measure of capacity; and, proba- 
bly, in no other country than our own is the word chaldron, which means a 
hot bath (as the word caldron means an iron or copper vessel containing hot 
water), retained as the proper term for a measure of capacity, precisely 
equal to that of the pyramid coffer. By these several minute and singular 
coincidences, the English nation appears to be more closely identified with 
the people who founded the Great Pyramid than many of those nations of 
antiquity who were apparently. brought into closer contact with Egypt in the 
earliest ages.” 

He also traces to the coffer the distinction between Troy and Avoirdupois 
weight: — 

“As the pyramid coffer contains 18,005,760 Troy grains, or 18,000;000 grains 
(omitting 5760 grains, equal to one pound), so it contains 3125 pounds Troy 
of 5760 grains. But this is the weight of water. If the coffer were filled 
with wheat the weight would be only 2500 pounds, or one-fifth less. Accord- 
ingly, 10 pounds Troy of water would occupy the space of 8 pounds Troy 
of wheat. The coffer was probably intended for a corn measure in the first 
instance; but it was also found that the same vessel, which would hold 2500 
pounds of wheat, would hold 3125 pounds of water or wine. Hence any 
vessel of capacity which would hold 10 pounds of 5760 grains was consid- 
ered to hold 8 pounds of 7200 grains. This was the original, in all proba- 
bility, of our Avoirdupois pound. 

“The name of Avoirdupois does not appear to have been given to any 
kind of weight in England earlier than the ninth year of Edward the Third. 
It is again mentioned in the twenty-fourth year of Henry the Eighth, when 
a statute directs ‘that beef, pork, mutton, and veal shall be sold by weight, 
called Averdupois;’ whence we may infer that butchers’ meat had previ- 
ously been sold by Troy weight. If there was an older weight which ex- 
pressed the relation that water was supposed to bear to wheat, when beth 


190 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


occupied the same space, viz., that of 5 to 4, or 7200 grains to 5760 grains, 
no other peculiar name for it has come down to our times. 

“But there was, from the earliest ages, a different pound from the Troy 
pound made use of, by which the merchant bought his goods; and his profit 
was obtained by selling them again at the same price in a less pound. This 
pound was called the merchant’s pound. Its ounce was the same as the 
Troy ounce of 480 grains, but, instead of 12, it contained 15 ounces. Fieta 
says, ‘quindecim uncie faciunt libram mercatoriam,’ — ‘15 ounces make the mer- 
chant’s pound.’ It was equal, therefore, to 7200 grains Troy; but its object 
was not to represent the comparative weight of wine and wheat, or water 
and wheat, but to give an advantage equal to 20 per cent, or one-fifth, to 
the merchant or wholesale buyer, in making his purchases. He sold his 
goods at the same price per pound at which he bought them, the increment 
of 3 ounces in 15, or 20 per cent, being his profit. Further advantages were 
also given him; as when 112 and 120 pounds were in some cases reckoned 
to the 100 pounds, on his taking a large quantity. Thus the merchant’s 
pound was a sort of rough wholesale pound, in which small amounts were 
disregarded, these being designed to be given to the merchant; and hence it 
was that the Avoirdupois pound, when it was established, took no cognizance 
of any weight below a scruple. In goods not weighed but counted, a larger 
number was allowed the merchant at the retail price of the smaller number.” 

Even the term Troy-weight is, according to Mr. Taylor, derived from the 
coffer, being a corruption of Trough-weight. 

With regard to the second question investigated by Mr. Taylor, When was 
the pyramid built? our limited space forbids further notice. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 


CHEMICAL ANALYSIS BY OBERVATIONS OF SPECTRA. 


Ir is well known that many substances when introduced into a flame pos- 
sess the property of causing in the spectrum certain bright lines. Bunsen 
and Kirchhoff have based upon these lines a method of qualitative analysis 
which materially extends the domain of chemical reactions, and leads to the 
solution of many difficult problems. In a memoir recently published (and an 
abstract of which may be found in Silliman’s Journal for November, 1850), 
the authors develop in detail the method to be pursued in the examinations 
of the metals, of the alkalies, and alkaline earths. They show, in the first 
place, that the different states of combination of the metals examined, as 
well as very great differences of temperature in the flames produced, exert 
no influence on the position of the spectral lines corresponding to the par- 
ticular metals. The same metallic compound gives a spectrum which is the 
more intense the higher the temperature of the flame; moreover, the most 
volatile compound of any particular metal always gives the greatest intensity 
of light. 

When small pieces of potassium, sodium, lithium and calcium are attached 
to the extremities of fine platinum wires enclosed in glass tubes, and the spark 
of a Ruhmkorff’s induction-apparatus is allowed to pass from one pole to 
the other, the spectra are found to contain the same bright lines as the 
flames. From this, it appears that these bright lines may be looked upon as 
certain indications of the presence of the metals in question. They serve as 
reactions by which these substances may be recognized more sharply, more 
quickly, and in smaller quantities, than by any other analytical process. 

This analysis of the chemical composition of substances promises to furnish 
also a method of investigating the chemical nature of the atmospheres of the 
sun and of the brighter fixed stars. Kirchhoff has shown, from theoretical 
considerations, that the spectrum of an ignited gas is inverted when a source 
of light of sufficient intensity, and giving a continuous spectrum, is placed 
behind it. In other words, the bright lines are under these circumstances 
converted into dark ones. From this it appears that the solar spectrum, with 
its dark lines, is nothing else than the inversion of the spectrum, which the 
atmosphere of the sun would show by itself. The chemical analysis of the 
sun’s atmosphere requires us, therefore, only to determine what substances 
introduced into a flame will produce bright lines, corresponding to the dark 
lines in the sun’s light. The authors have verified by direct experiment the 


192 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


above conclusions, and have inverted the bright lines of potassium, sodium, 
lithium, calcium, strontium, and barium. They promise a further extension 
of their very beautiful and valuable investigations. — Pogg. Ann. June, 1860, 
et Silliman’s Journal, November, 1860. 


ON THE PROBABLE COMPOUND NATURE OF SOME OF THE 
SO-CALLED “ ELEMENTS.” 


An interesting and elaborate paper by Gustav Tschermak, published in the 
Proceedings of the Academy of Science of Vienna, and extracted in an 
abridged form in Knop’s Centralblatt (July 4, 1860), on the subject of the 
law of volumes of liquid chemical compounds, affords a support to the views 
expressed by Mr. Lea, of Philadelphia, and others, “ that those bodies which 
we have as yet failed to decompose we have not found to be elementary.” 
The author therein shows that many of the substances usually classed as 
elements comport themselves in the physical properties exhibited by their 
combinations as compound bodies, and that it is possible from these physical 
properties to determine (hypothetically) the number of “‘ physical” or absolute - 
atoms which he supposes to be contained in a chemical atom of such body 
or pseudo-element. He endeavors to show that it is possible to calculate the 
specific gravity of a liquid from its atomic weight and the number of simple - 
(chemical) atoms in its compound molecule as data, but that the results lead 
to the immediate inference that each chemical atom contains, with few excep- 
tions, several physical atoms. 

The particulars of the theory of M. Tschermak, and the results deduced by 
him, are too technical for presentation in the present volume; but a further 
reference to them may be found in Silliman’s Journal for November, 1860, in 
a paper communicated by M. Carey Lea, of Philadelphia, on the subject. 


ON THE NUMERICAL RELATIONS EXISTING BETWEEN THE ELEMENTS. 


In the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1860, we published an abstract of 
a paper, by M. Carey Lea, Esq. (contributed to Stiliman’s Journal), setting 
forth some exceedingly curious numerical relations existing between the 
equivalent numbers of the so-called elementary bodies. In the May num- 
ber of the same Journal we find an additional paper by the same author, in 
which a new species of relation between the equivalent numbers of the 
elements is pointed out, wholly distinct, it is believed, from any hitherto 
noticed, and which Mr. Lea terms “Geometrical Ratios.” 

“The arithmetical relations between the equivalent numbers of the 
elements,” says Mr. Lea, “ are susceptible of at least an hypothetical expla- 
nation, on the supposition that the common difference in a series of elements 
may represent the equivalent numbers of a substance as yet undetermined, 
which, by its combinations in varying proportions, gives rise to the bodies 
constituting the successive terms of the series. The new analogies, on the 
contrary, are more difficult of explanation, even by hypothesis. Their accu- 
racy, sometimes absolute, renders improbable the supposition that they are 
mere casual coincidences. 

“The nature of these relations consists in this, that if we take two substances, 
and examine the ratio which subsists between the numbers representing 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1860, pp. 279-283. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 193 


their atomie weights, we may find, in certain cases, that it is identical with 
the ratio subsisting between the atomic weights of two other substances, and 
so on through a considerable number of elements. The ratio between the 
atomic weights, for instance, of oxygen and nitrogen, is that of four to 
seven, so likewise is that between those of zirconium and potassium, potas- 
sium and barium, with absolute exactitude. What renders this the more 
remarkable is, that all three of these last substances are striking exceptions 
to Prout’s law, that the equivalents of the elements are exact multiples of 
that of hydrogen; they all have decimals, zirconium 22.4, potassium 39.2, 
barium 68.6. Now, the ratio just mentioned gives these numbers with their 
decimals with perfect exactness. The same species of relation also exists 
between many other elements. 

“Again, the atomic weight of carbon stands to that of nitrogen in the ratio 
of three to seven, a proportion which is found exactly or approximately to 
extend to certain other elements. Apart, also, from these more general 
ratios, many elements may be classed together in double or treble pairs, 
such that the two elements in one pair stand to each other in the same 
numerical ratio as the two elements of a second or third pair, the two ele- 
ments constituting each pair being more or less closely allied to each other 
in properties, though the pairs are not necessarily anaiogous with those with 
which they are compared. 

“For example, arsenic stands to antimony in the same numerical ratio as 
selenium to tellurium, within an extremely small fraction, so that by multi- 
plying and dividing we have: — 

Tellurium 64 


~ Arsenic 75 ——__———— = ]20. Antimony = 120.3.” 
ERS Selenium 40 3 : 


Our space does not allow further reference to the details of this paper than 
to give its conclusion, which is as follows :— 

“Tt is not easy to fix the exact amount of importance which attaches to 
the numerical relations up to this time ascertaincd to exist between the 
atomic weights of the elements. Some are, no doubt, mere casual coinci- 
dences, and relations remarkably exact and symmetrical may exist between 
the atomic weights of bodies which have no analogies in their properties: 
for example, we may take calcium twenty, scicnium forty, uranium sixty, 
bromine eighty, mereury one hundred. Here the differences are not only 
exact, but all the subsequent numbers are multiples of the first, and this 
between bodies remarkably dissimilar in their properties, —a striking proof 
of the necessity of caution in inferring relations of properties as following 
irom relations of numbers. But, on the other hand, to reject the relations 
of number when accompanied by analogy of properties as unmeaning and 
unimportant, would be to err quite as much on ihe other side. When the 
received equivalent of an element, forming a term in a weil marked series, 
differs from that obtained by calculation, it naturally leads, as Professor 
Maliet has remarked, to suspect an error and desire a redetermination. The 
fact that a group of elements, allied in their chemical characters, may be 
arranged in a series having a common difference or a definite ratio between 
its terms, confirms the propriety of grouping those elements together, and 
such analogies may, in doubtful cases, assist us in arriving at a correct 
classification.” 

17 


194 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ORGANO-METALLIC RADICALS. 


M. Cahours, in a recent number of the Annales de Chimie, publishes a most 
elaborate article on the above-named substances, from which we notice a few 
points of interest. The writer observes that there exists for simple bodies 
capable of union a point of saturation which exhibits an equilibrium that 
cannot be exceeded. So long as this state of equilibrium is not reached we 
can add to the first substance a new proportion of the second, until saturation 
is effected. Also, there are certain bodies which, when united to another, 
give products whose combining power is more energeiic than that of the 
simple substance. Of these he enumerates oxide of carbon, sulphurous acid, 
ete., which not only are able to absorb fresh quantities of oxygen wiih 
greater facility than carbon and sulphur, but which are able to form with 
chlorine, iodine, etc., compounds corresponding to those of maximum oxy- 
genization. These groups, which can be separated intact from their combi- 
nations, and which subsequently present all the appearances of simple bodies, 
are named radicals. Every compound may be regarded as a system of molc- 
cules in equilibrium, whose atoms are attracted by affinities more or less. 
strong. If we replace one or several of these atoms by an equal number of 
some other substance, we obtain new compounds, which present the same 
mechanical grouping as the primitive product, and whose equilibrium wiil 
vary within any extended limits, according to the force of the attractions of 
the elements of the newsubstance. Thus ammonia can exchange all or part 
of its hydrogen for chlorine, bromine, iodine, carbon, ethyle, metals, etc., to 
form compounds belonging to the same system, but in variable states of 
equlibrium. Thus, while ammonia resists a dull red heat, chloride of nitrogen 
is destroyed at a temperature below that of boiling water. When methyle, 
ethyle, amyle, etc., unite with certain simple bodies, they engender products 
whose affinity for oxygen exceeds that of the simple substance. Thus zinc, 
whose behavior to water at ordinary temperatures is very quiet, decomposes 
it with violence when united with methyle or ethyle. The same occurs with 
magnesium and aluminium, and still more so with the most electro-positive 
metals, such as potassium and sodium. The most electro-negative metals, 
such as zinc, tin, lead, and mercury, which, like the preceding, can couple 
themselves with the alcoholic radicals, form, like them, compounds wiih a 
strong affinity for oxygen, chlorine, ctc.; but these affinities are less ener- 
getic, and when the saturation point is obtained, they comport themselves 
as inert substances towards these bodies. The compounds of ethyle and 
methyle with metals, being able to separate themselves intact from new 
combinations, play the part of elementary substances. The curious proper- 
ties of the metallic ethylides and methylides, which behave like real metals, 
more electro-positive than the simple metals which they contain, have created 
legitimate doubts as to the elementary character of the metals themselves. 
Ethyle and methyle unite with the electro-negative bodies which stand at the 
head of the series of simple bodies (oxygen, chlorine, etc.) and form stable 
and neutral compounds. As we descend the seale and approach potassium, 
which is at its base, we obtain less stable compounds invested with such 
energetic affinities for the substances higher in the scale, that a molecule is 
displaced, and simple and stable compounds produced. The remainder of 


the paper is occupied with descriptions of metallic compounds of ethyle and 
methyle. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 195 


NEW METALLIC ELEMENT. 


Von Kobell has discovered in euxenite, eschynite, and samarskite, and a 
tantalite from Tammela, a new metallic acid, belonging to the same group 
with tantalic and niobic acids. To the new metal contained in this acid the 
auihor has given the name of Dianium. . 


ALUMINUM LEAF. 


A Parisian gold-beater, Degousse, has succeeded in obtaining leaves of 
aluminum as thin as those from gold and silver. The aluminum must be 
reheaied repeatedly over a chafing-dish during the process of beating. This 
leaf is less brilliant than that of silver, but it is not so easily tarnished as the 
latter. It is easily combustible, taking fire when held in the flame of a can- 
dle, and burning with an exceedingly intense white flame. 

According to Fabian, the chemical lecturer will find aluminum leaf to be 
well adapted for exhibiting the characteristic properties of the metal. It 
dissolves, for example, with surprising rapidity in a solution of caustic alkali. 


NEW METHOD OF PREPARING THE METAL CALCIUM. 


Caron has succeeded in preparing large quantities of calcium by the fol- 
lowing process: A mixture of 300 parts of fused and puiverized chloride 
of calcium, with 400 parts of granulated, distilled zinc, and 100 parts of 
sodium in pieces, is to be heated to redness in a crucible. The reaction is 
feeble, and after some time flames of zine appear. The heat is then to be 
moderated, the temperature remaining as high as possible without volatiliz- 
ing the zinc; after a quarter of an hour the crucible may be withdrawn from 
the fire. It contains a well-fused metallic mass, which is highly crystalline, 
and which contains from 10 to 15 per cent of calcium. The alloy is then to 
be placed in a crucible of gas-retort carbon, and the zinc expelled by heat. 
In this manner Caron obtained masses of 40 grammes at a single operation, 
and containing only the impurities of the zinc employed. As thus employed, 
calcium has a brass-yellow color, and a density of from 1.6 to 1.8. Itis not 
sensibly volatile, but filings of the metal burn with red sparks of remarkable 
beauty, without formation of vapor, which seems to show that the metal is 
not volatile at the temperature of its combustion. The author promises to 
communicate the results of similar experiments in the preparation of barium, 
strontium, etc. — Comptes Rendus. 


THE METALLURGY OF PLATINUM. 


The metallurgy of platinum is altogether a modern art, the introduction 
of the metal into the laboratories of science and industry dating but from a 
few years back; and although particularly deserving of the attention of 
chemists, the metallurgy of platinum and its associated metals is, in general, 
but little known. Except for chemical purposes, platinum has not hitherto 
received any important application; but when we know better where to look 
for its ores, and when the deposits already known are more extensively 
worked, the ores of platinum will, perhaps, become no rarer than gold; and 
as the metal is almost indestructible, and as its vaiue protects it from losses 
and accidents of all kinds, it must in time accumulate, and thus become 


196 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


more plentiful. It may then, perhaps, be applied to other useful purposes 
in which its weight and slightly tarnished color will be no obiection, or for 
which its absolute unalterability will give it a peculiar value. The solution 
of these questions, however, depends on the price for which the metal can 
be supplied; and the chemist is particularly interested in seeing its cost so 
far reduced that the large vessels of the laboratory may be made of plati- 
num. It was inthe hope of facilitating a progress of this kind, that MM. 
Deville and Debray, of France, undertook a series of difficult researches, 
costing four years of labor, the results of which have been recently given to 
the public in the Annales de Chimie et Physique. 

Until the first communications of these chemists were published, no one 
dreamed of utilizing all the metals found with platinum, and with the excep- 
tion of palladium and osmium, which there was always a motive for sepa- 
rating, platinum alone has been extracted from the ores, leaving a residue, 
which has accumulated in all the manufactories in Europe as well as in the 
Russian Mint. 

The processes described by them are exclusively by the dry way, and by 
fusion at a very high temperature. They are given in different chapters, 
which treat of ‘‘ the revivification of pure platinum,” ‘the metallurgy of pure 
platinum,” “the extraction from the rough ore of a triple alloy of platinum, 
rhodium, and iridium of a suitable and invariable composition; ” and, lastly, 
the extraction, whether from the residues or from the osmide of iridium, of 
the utilizable metals, platinum, palladium, rhodium, and iridium. 

The apparatus by means of which these French chemists have succeeded 
in melting platinum in considerable quantities and casting it into ingots, 
consists of a furnace of lime bound with iron wire. The fuel most often 
employed was common coal-gas, but hydrogen may be used, and when pure 
will give a greater heat. The combustion was fed with a current of oxygen. 

In commerce, platinum is found which is almost free from iridium, but 
which still contains traces of osmium and alittle silicium. MM. Deville and 
Debray have discovered that fusion in lime by means of an oxidizing flame 
refines it perfectly, osmic acid being disengaged, and the silicium becoming 
converted into silicate of lime, which melts into a colorless bead, and moves 
rapidly about on the surface of the metal until it reaches the edge, where it 
is absorbed by the sides of the furnace. Platinum so melted and refined is 
a metal as soft as copper; it is whiter than ordinary platinum, and does not 
possess the porosity which has hitherto been an obstacle to the manufacture 
of an impermeable platinum sheath. 

Melted platinum still possesses the property of condensing gases at its 
surface, and of producing the phenomenon of a lamp without flame. Is 
density = 21.15, —less than the density of ordinary platinum which has been 
subjected in the working to a powerful hammering. 

At a meeting of the French Academy, June 4th, 1860, MM. Deville and 
Debray exhibited (1.) Two ingots of platinum weighing together twenty- 
five kilogrammes, fused in the same fire and cast in an ingot mould of cast 
iron. The surface of the metal shows evidence of perfect fluidity and 
carries the impression of characters engraved on the surface of the mould. 

(2.) Atoothed wheel of platinum, cast in ordinary founders’ sand, was also 
shown. This was cast in the mode common-for cast iron, in a two-part flask, 
with a sprue and vent holes as usual. 

The metal used was obtained from a quantity of ernde platinum and 
piatinum money placed at their disposal by the Russian Government. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 197 


Among other curious results arrived at by MM. Deville and Debray, we 
may mention the discovery of another condition of osmium, differing from 
that obtained by the method of Berzelius. In its new form, so far from 
being oxidizable at common temperatures, it may be heated to the fusing 
point of zine without oxidizing or yielding odors of osmic acid. As pre- 
pared by the o!d method, it was spongy with a sp. g. of 7; by the new one 
its sp. g. is 21.3, oreven 21.4. The experimenters could not succeed in fusing 
it. Palladium likewise behaves in a singular manner. “ Itis soluble in zine, 
but does not combine with it; for when the alloy is treated with hydro- 
chloric acid, only palladium remains. With tin itis otherwise. If palladium 
with six times its weight of tin be fused at a red heat, and the alloy when 
cold be treated with muriatie acid, a brilliant crystalline compound remains, 
having a composition of Pd3 Sng.” With silver and copper it yields simi- 
lar compounds. 


MAGNUS ON THE PROPERTIES OF IRON IN POWDER. 


Metallic iron in a state of very fine division has for some years been used 
in medical practice. It is thus obtained when the oxide of iron is reduced by 
hydrogen. When well prepared, this form of iron is so combustible as to 
take fire on exposure to air, burning with scintillation. A manufactory has 
lately been established in the Tyrol for making iron-powder of very con- 
siderable fineness, although the process is mechanical, consisting in using 
very fine files. Its therapeutic properties have not yet been decided. It 
does not burn spontaneously in air, although it is extremely combustible, as 
the following experiment by Magnus clearly demonstrates. Thus, when a 
burning body is approached to these Tyrolean filings they do not inflame 
unless they are previously suspended from the poles of a magnet. This ex- 
periment is easily repeated, and is interesting in a lecture. If a magnet be 
thus armed with these fine filings, and a flame applied, a combustion begins 
which spreads rapid!y, and if the magnet is jarred a shower of burning 
particles fall through the air. 


. 


ALLOTROPIC CONDITION OF IRON. 


M. Keshner has recently shown that by the prolonged boiling of a basic 
nitrate of iron its condition is changed, so that a precipitate obtained with 
sulphate of soda, and dried in a current of air upon porcelain, is insoluble in 
concentrated acids, but very soluble in water, the solution being turbid by 
reflected and clear by transmitted light. In this state the iron does not 
exhibit the customary reactions with ferrocyanides and sulphocyanides. He 
also found that light, as well as heat, was capable of producing this allotropic 
state of the iron salts. 


KRUPP’S STEEL WORKS AT ESSEN, GERMANY. 


The cast-steel manufactory of F. Krupp, of Essen, is the largest steel 
manufactory in the world. It is situated on the skirts of the town, in the 
midst of the coal mines, and covers, with its buildings and yards, a space 
sixteen hundred by eighteen hundred feet; fifteen large chimneys tower 
above it, and an incredible number of small ones are continually in use. A 
cloud of smoke hangs all the week over the vicinity, and only disappears 
with the quiet of Sunday. About fifteen hundred men are employed in the 

17* 


198 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


various works, and one hundred and fifty tons of coal are consumed each 
day. The process employed for manufacturing the steel was discovered 
after many expensive and laborious experiments by Mr. Krupp, and is kept 
a profound secret, only a few trustworthy men being allowed to work in the 
room where the important mixtures are made. The method is suid to be 
founded on the principle of melting together carbonized and decarbonized 
iron, cast and wrought-iron, and thus obtaining a mixture which has the 
known composition of steel. 

I was told by a metailurgist at Horde that he had succeeded in obtaining 
steel in the same way (indeed, it is a process which has long been known to 
chemists); but all his attempts to make crucibles to stand the heat and 
action of the materials were unavailing. Others, again, declare that the art 
lies in the application of a peculiar kind of flux or glass, which protects the 
smelicd metal and allows it to unite properly. Be the process what it may, 
the results are remarkable. England has sought to compete with this 
manufactory, but she has always failed. No country has even ap- 
proached in the size of its production the massive pieces which are turned 
out here. A mass of ten thousand pounds of cast-steel was sent to the Paris 
exhibition. The largest shaft of the same material ever made here was, when 
turned, thirty feet long and ten inches in diameter, and is now in use on a 
French steamer, and cost six thousand dollars; and a single piece of steel 
has been produced weighing twenty thousand pounds. 

Car axles of steel have been largely manufactured, and Mr. Krupp binds 
himself to pay a penalty of ten thousand five hundred dollars if any that he 
sells break within ten years, which, I may say, is throwing the responsibility 
for this species of railroad accidents upon the right shoulders. Railroad car 
wheels and bells are sometimes made from steel, but the chief manufacture 
at present is cannon. ‘These are made from the smallest size up to sixty- 
eight-pounders, and are cast in a single piece and afterwards bored out. The 
consiruction of these guns is remarkable; they consist of a thick, solid cylin- 
der of stcecl, made precisely half the thickness of the cast-iron guns (this 
proportion is assumed arbitrarily, since no experiments have been instituted 
to prove the proper proportions which should be adopted with this new 
material), but the metal mass is not heavy enough to withstand the recoil of 
the powder and-ball, and, consequently, a heavy shell of cast-iron surrounds 
the breech. The excellence of the guns as warlike instruments is everywhere 
acknowledged. — Correspondence of the United States Raiiroad Journal. 


*ON TUNGSTEN STEEL. 


It is stated that cast-iron containing from five to six per cent of tungsten 
acquires an extraordinary hardness. Cast-steel also, containing from four to 
five per cent of tungsten, will have a tenacity and quality superior to those 
of the best steels, and will become capable of taking a most extraordinary 
temper and hardness. According to trials made at Neustadt, tools of tem- 
pered tungsten steel were capable of cutting objects made of ordinary cast- 
steel equally tempered. 

Tungsten has nearly the same specific gravity as gold, and this density is 
recognizable in the cast-steel alloyed with it, by the alteration in the grain of 
the fractured surface, and by the heightened ring of the steel. In hardness, 
metallic tungsten nearly approaches the hardest of natural bodies, and it 
communicates this property to cast-steel, without injuring its tenacity and 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 199 


malleability when the addition is of 2.5 per cent. The absolute solidity of 
tungsten steel exceeds that of all other known steels; for fifteen consecutive 
experiments with a machine in the Polytechnic Institute of Vienna showed 
“the highest power of resistance to be 1,393 hundredweight, and the lowest 
1,015 hundredweight, giving an average of 1,158 hundredweight to the 
square inch; so that this steel exceeds all other kinds hitherto subjected to 
experiment. 

For the preparation of this steel wolfram (tunsgtate of iron and manganese) 
is purified by roasting, pulverizing, and washing, and by a final treatment 
with dilute hydrochloric acid. The purified ore is then placed in a crucible 
with coal dust, and heated to redness for three hours. The ore is reduced, 
and a porous gray mass is obtained, formed of metallic tungsten alloyed with 
carburets of iron and manganese. This is the product which is used for the 
preparation of tungsten steel, and it is thrown into the crucibles in which 
cast-steel is melted. Care must be taken before running the steel into ingots 
to increase the heat of the fire, for ten or twenty minutes, so as to carry the 
temperature of the crucible to a bright redness. It appears, however, that 
the manufacture of tungsten steel in quantity yet presents considerable 
difficulties, and that it has not yet been practicable to prepare masses or bars 
of considerable size which are free from faults. 

It is desirable that this application of tungsten should be practically estab- 
lished, for this would render a great service to mining industry, by utilizing 
a material of wide distribution, which until now has been banished from the 
list of ores capable of profitable exploration. 

The only applications of the compounds of tungsten hitherto made, and 
which have not had great success, owing perhaps to the qualities of the 
products not being sufficiently remarkable or superior to give much value, 
or, possibly, because the processes and preparations were too costly, are the 
following: use of tungstic acid for coloring yellow; oxide of tungsten for 
coloring blue; and the employment of tungstate of soda in dyeing and calico 
printing, and as a substitute for stannate of soda. 


INFLUENCE OF THE PRESENCE OF TITANIUM ON THE QUALITY 
OF IRON. 


Mr. David Mushet, the well-known English iron manufacturer, in a com- 
munication to the London Engineer Journal, expresses an opinion, that the 
mystery of the excellence of the Danemora and other irons is due to the 
presence in the iron of a small proportion of the metal titanium. Sometime 
ago, his attention having been drawn to this matter, by the fact that crystals 
of titanium occur in the hearths of Norwegian blast furnaces, he instituted 
a series of experiments, which he describes as follows : — 

By alloying small quantities of titanium with iron and steel I obtained 
surprising results, which at once convinced me that I was upon the right 
track at last. I now had the iron ores of the districts I have named care- 
fully examined for titanium, and I found that all of them contained titanic 
acid, and that whichever ore most abounded in titanic acid, the iron and steel 
produced from that ore was the most celebrated and valuable. In reducing 
likewise the ores of iron and titanium I found that a peculiar slag, or scoria, 
was always obtained, and of such a remarkable character that it was impos- 
sible, when once seen, ever to mistake it for any other kind of iron slag; and 
from the color and appearance of this slag I could at length, by experience, 


200 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


determine with tolerable accuracy the percentage of titanium, and therefore 
of titanic acid, in any given specimen of titanium ore or titaniferous iron ore. 
And now the whole mystery of the Danemora iron was at once elucidated; 
and its explanation is this,— the magnetic iron ore from which the Danemora 
iron is prepared contains a larger percentage of titanic acid than other ores 
from which the inferior brands of Swedish iron are obtained, and the bar 
iron obtained is therefore more largely alloyed with titanium. 

Moreover, as titanium is perhaps the most difficult to fuse of all the 
metals, its alloy with bar iron requires a higher temperature for its fusion 
than that required for the fusion of bar iron destitute of such an alloy, and 
it is well known that the best Dancmora iron, in the state of iron, is more 
difficult to melt than any other charcoal bar iron. It has also been observed 
by the steel trade that steel irons which require much melting, 7. e., which 
are difficu!t to melt, yield cast steel possessing great body, 7. e., powers of 
endurance when made into s tool. 

It will, I am aware, be oljected that chemists have as yet detected no 
titanium in these irons. I grant this; and I will explain why it has been so. 
Chemists confound the titanic and silicie acids one with the other, and, 
besides this, the insoluble residuum is likewise a form or compound of tita- 
nium. J will cite a case in point which completely confirms and proves my 
position. An extraordinary magnetic iron-sand was brought to England 
from a volcanic district in the South Seas. Some of this ore was sent to me, 
and I perceived at once that it was an ore of titanium. On testing it by my 
processes, I found that it must contain at least eight or ten per cent of tita- 
nic acid. 

I have from this ore manufactured steel of surpassing excellence; sam- 
ples of which are in the hands of the fortunate owner of the deposit, the 
value of which for steel and iron making is incalculable. The analogy be- 
tween this ore and that of Danemora has already been observed by parties 
acquainted with the manufacture of Swedish iron; but the explanation of 
the similarity was reserved for me to give. Until my discoveries upon this 
subject, titanium has only been alluded to as a pernicious ingredient in iron 
ores or iron, causing redshortness, etc. One chemist alone has remarked 
that titanium in small quantities does not appear to affect the quality of iron 
injuriously; and this remark I find in an almost obsolete French work on 
chemistry. The celebrated Damascus blades are made from iron reduced 
from a highly titaniferous iron ore. The Wootz ore of India is more titanif- 
erous than thatof Danemora. The E!ba iron ore is moderately titaniferous, 
and so also is the Brush iron ore of the Forest of Dean. Iron alloyed with 
titanium possesses a degree of body and durability unknown in ordinary 
bar iron of good quality. First-rate steel can only be made from iron con- 
taining titanium. There is a spurious, ductile, and easily workable steei 
which owes its usefulness to the presence of manganese; but between which 
and the titanic steel there exists as wide a difference, in point of excellence, 
as there is between common hot-blast Scotch pig iron and the best Shrop- 
shire or Blaenavon cold-blast iron. 

This difference is well known to the Sheffield trade. Titanium steel has 
body. Manganese steel has little or none; but it is ductile, and hardens well, 
and is cheap besides, and can be applied to inferior purposes. Not that the 
Sheifield steel-makers ever dreamed about titanium; but what they call body 
is, in intelligible language, rendered correctly by the term titanium; and to the 
fact of this metal existing in alloy with Danemora and other Swedish bar 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 201 


irons, to the extent of from one quarter per cent to about one or one and a 
half per cent, is mainly due the rise, progress, and present prosperity of 
Sheffield and its manufacturers. 

When pure gray cast iron is alloyed with titanium in certain proportions, 
it may, when cast into ingots, be drawn into bars of great strength and tena- 
city. I[have.thus drawn an ingot of gray cast iron three inches square into 
bars three-quarters inch square, and perfectly sound. 

The specific gravity of titanium has been most erroncously assigned by 
chemists as 5.3. It is in reality a metal somewhat heavier than iron, and that 
steel which contains a large alloy of titanium is consequently found to have 
a higher specific gravity than other steel. It may be objected that small 
proportions of titanium, in alloy with iron, cannot produce a marked effect. 
To this I reply, that with one-half per cent of carbon, and under that propor- 
tion, are produced nearly all the marketable varieties of bar iron and steel 
with which we are familiar; and it is also certain that one-half per cent of 
phosphorus renders bar iron crystalline, and one-half per cent of sulphur 
oceasions redshortness; therefore, that so small a quantity as one-half per 
cent of titanium should constitute the excellence of steel iron is not at ali 
an anomaly. Magnetic iron ores always contain some titanic acid, and 
such is its efficacy in improving the quality of iron, that the most impure 
maynetic ores, abounding with pyrites, nevertheless yield iron of a superior 
class. If the iron used in the manufacture of rails was prepared from pig- 
iron, smeited from ordinary iron ores, with the addition of a tenth part of 
titanium, or even one-twentieth, the rails thus manufactured would be at the 
least four times more durable than they are found to be under the present 
process of manufacture. This is only one of the many important results 
which the discovery of the effects of an alloy of titanium upon iron will 
lead to. The deposit of titanium ore of the iserine variety, to which I 
have alluded, extends twenty miles in length by half a mile in breadth, and 
has no bottom at four yards in depth. It is all of one uniform quality, in 
the state of iron-sand, so minutely divided, that of half a ton which I have 
had, the whole of it readily passes through the meshes of a sieve of three 
thousand six hundred holes to the square inch, that is to say, the largest 
grains are not so much as one thirty-six hundredth part of an inch in dia- 
meter. From my experiments with iserine heated and immersed in water, I 
am of opinion that the whole of this extraordinary deposit of iron-sand has 
been, when at an intense temperature, suddenly quenched in water. It pro- 
bably existed in the interior of a volcano, into which at some epoch an irrup- 
tion of the sea has taken place, and the sand has been thrown out by the 
force of the explosion which must have ensued. The region is volcanic, and 
there are lofty extinct volcanoes near the locality of the deposit. 

Reckoning thirty hundredweight percubice yard as the weight of this sand, 
the number of tons in the area already ascertained of this deposit will amount 
to one hundred and eighty-five millions eight hundred and fifty-six thousand 
tons, a quantity sufficient to furnish a supply for all the furnaces in England 
with ore for twenty-iive years. 


IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 


It is well known that articles of cast iron may be rendered malleable in a 
dezree, by closely packing them in powdered hematite (peroxide of iron) in 
tight fire-brick cases, and subjecting them to a red heat, in an annealing 


202 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


furnace, for a period of time varying from six to ten days, finally allowing 
them to cool slowly. In this case, the character of the iron is changed, by a 
removal of a part of its carbon, through the agency of the oxygen of the 
powdered hematite. An improvement on this process, recently devised by 
Prof. A. K. Eaton, consists in the substitution of the oxide of a volatile 
metal, as zinc, instead of that of iron; the volatile metal going off in vapor 
as it parts with its oxygen to the carbon of the iron, and thus affording 
room for fresh portions of oxide to fall in and continue the process. The 
metallic vapor is at the same time received in a condensing vessel, and is 
afterward cast into ingots. 

According to the New York Tribune, the same inventor has devised a sim- 
ilar method applicable to the production of steel, which, indeed, may be 
produced in the- process described; steel being, in fact, but a partially 
deearbonized cast iron, and, therefore, actually resulting in one stage of the 
conversion of cast into malleable iron. 

Prof. Eaton, however (according to the above authority), has found that 
the hydrates and carbonates of the alkalies, heated in contact with cast iron, 
exert a decarbonizing action like that of oxide of zinc. Selecting carbonate 
of soda, a compound of carbonic acid and oxide of sodium, and causing 
this to fuse and cover bits of cast iron, the salt is decomposed, the oxide of 
sodium giving up its oxygen, which unites with the carbon of the iron, 
forming carbonic oxide, which escapes, together with the carbonic acid of 
the salt. Metallic sodium is vaporized in meeting the oxygen of the air, 
admitted in limited quantity into the retort for this purpose, and is recon- 
verted into soda. The liquid solution reaches every portion of the surface 
of the cast iron, and the chemical action gradually penetrates the whole 
mass. The affinity of the sodium for sulphur and phosphorus causes them 
to be seized and withdrawn from the iron, and they both are retained by 
the alkali in the condition of sulphuret and phosphuret of sodium. At the 
same time silicon is also separated, through its affinity for oxygen, with 
which it forms silicic acid, and this unites with the soda, forming silicate of 
soda. The experiments so far made are highly encouraging, that this will 
prove not only an efficient method in practical operations upon a large scale 
of removing these elements so injurious to iron, but that, in consequence of 
this property, the vast bodies of sulphurous iron ores, which, though rich in 
metal, have so far defied the skili of metallurgists to effect with economy 
their reduction to good iron, may now be rendered of practical importance. 
The experiments have been made upon a scale which might answer for 
manufacturing operations; a product of several hundred pounds of steel 
having been obtained, which has been cast into ingots, hammered into bars, 
and made into a variety of small articles. 

The expense of the manufacture is comparatively light. In the first place, 
the raw material employed is the cheap cast iron, which never before was 
considered applicable to this use. The process is rapid, and no excessive 
heat is required, like that for melting and carbonizing malleable iron, as 
practised in one method of making steel, —a method which involves the use 
and rapid consumption of highly expensive crucibles. A red heat sufficient 
to fuse the soda is all that is necessary. Crude carbonate of soda, or soda 
ash, suitable for this use, is a cheap product, especially considering that the 
same bath of it can be used repeatedly, and when it becomes too impure, it 
can be restored by inexpensive methods to its former condition; though 
some more uscful application for the metallic sodium may render this inex- 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 2038 


pedient. The apparatus is a cast iron retort of convenient form, made, it 
may be, to be set upright and to be charged at the top, or to lie horizontally, 
like the retorts of the gas-houses, in which case the charging door would be 
in the front, a sloping entrance leading down into the upper portion of the 
retort. The articles to be converted into steel are placed one upon another 
in this vessel, and sufficient soda is introduced to flow over and cover them 
as it melts. It is not necessary that the articles should be kept immersed in 
the liquid soda, the most satisfactory results having been obtained even 
when a considerable portion of the soda, after once covering the bars, had 
been allowed to escape. The retort itself becomes decarbonized, — con- 
verted into steel, and finally into malleable iron. In this condition it may 
continue in use for many firings; and considering the low heat employed, 
there is little doubt it can be made almost permanent.—WV. Y. Tribune. 


MELTING ZINC BY MEANS OF GAS. 


A report has been made to the Society for the encouragement of National 
Industry (France) upon the method of melting zinc by means of ordinary 
illuminating gas, proposed by M. Miroy. The results are interesting to zinc- 
founders, type-founders, and those engaged in melting and casting tin, 
lead, or the fusible alloys of these metals. We translate the following from 
the report: — 

The melting of zine, which is generally made in crucibles of plumbago, 
and in a coke or coal fire, involves a very elevated temperature, difficult to 
regulate, and a consequent loss of metal by volatilization and combustion. 
The metal also acquires bad qualities, which workmen attribute to its being 
burned or scorched, but which appear to be due to the mechanical penetra- 
tion of the oxide of zinc into the pores of the metallic mass. The melted 
metal then presents a pasty consistence, and the action of the chisel and the 
file becomes more difficult upon the casting, owing to the alteration of the 
malleability. 

To remedy these disadvantages, M. Miroy fuses zine by gas. His appa- 
ratus consists of a crucible of cast iron, which may contain thirty to thirty- 
five kilogrammes of zinc. This is placed in a cylindrical furnace of conical 
form, where it is exposed to the combustion of ordinary illuminating gas, 
which enters obliquely on two sides by two tuyeres. These are each concen- 
tric with larger tuyeres, through which air is forced by means of a blower 
driven by the machinery of the establishment. The interior diameter of the 
smaller, or gas tuyere, is eighteen millimetres; those of the air, seven centi- 
metres. The volume of air used has not been determined, but is estimated 
to be to that of the gas as three to one. The inventor thinks that by this 
method zinc may be melted more rapidly and cheaply than by coke, while 
the heat may be so regulated as not to injure the metal. There is also a 
great saving in the cost of crucibles. — Répertoire de Chimie. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE METAL MAGNESIUM AS AN ILLUMI- 
NATING AGENT. 


It has recently been proposed by M. Bunsen, of Paris, to employ the metal 
magnesium for producing light by its combustion. This metal, it is well 
known, is the base of magnesia, as aluminum is of alumina. It is, however, 
much less known than the latter, although it is but a short time since both 


204 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


were regarded as alike obscure and useless. Aluminum is remarkable for its 
lightness, being only about one-fourth the weight of silver; but magnesium 
weighs only about two-thirds as much as aluminum, its specific gravity 
being only 1.74. It is of a silvery whiteness, undergoes no change in dry 
air, and is subject to but slow oxidation in a damp atmosphere, and that 
only quite superficially ; it may be hammered, filed, and drawn into threads. 
It is prepared by decomposing the chioride of the metal at a red heat, in a 
close crucible, by means of potassium or sodium. The metal takes fire at 
the temperature at which bottic-glass melts, and burns with a quiet and 
excessively vivid light. 

The intensity of the light thus produced, as determined by Bunsen, is only 
525 times less than that of the sun. Compared with an ordinary candle, it 
appeared that a wire of magnesium 0.297 millimetre [1 mm. = 0.0394 inch] 
in diameter produced as much light in burning as seventy-four stearine 
candles, five to the pound. In order to support this light during one minute 
a piece of wire 0.987 metres long, weighing 0.1204 gram [1 gram = 15.4329 
grains], was required. 

Only 72.2 grams of magnesium, therefore, would be needed, in order to 
maintain during ten hours an amount of light equal to that of seventy-four 
stearine candles, consuming about 10.000 grams of stearine. 

According to Bunsen, magnesium wire is readily obtained by forcibly 
pressing the metal through a hot steel die by means of a steel piston. Bun- 
sen’s arrangement for burning the wire was made by connecting spools of 
it with rollers moved by clock-work, so that the wire should be unrolled like 
the ribbon of paper in Morse’s telegraph. The end of the wire, thus gradually 
pushed forward, passed into the flame of an ordinary alcohol lamp, where it 
took fire. 

It is evident that a magnesium lamp of this sort must be much simpler 
and more compendious than any of the existing arrangements of the electri- 
cal or of Drummond’s light; for light-houses, etc., where an intensely 
brilliant illumination is required, it can hardly fail to rival either of these. 
Where an extraordinary amount of light is needed, it could readily be pro- 
duced by burning large wires, or several thin ones at the sametime. Another 
important consideration is the fact that the spoois of wire, as well as the 
clock-work and spirit-lamp, are easily transportable. 

It is not, however, to the intensity alone of the magnesium flame that these 
lamps owe their utility, for the photo-chemical (/. e., photographical) effect 
of the light is also very great; according to Bunsen, the photo-chemical 
power of the sun being only 36.6 times greater than that of the magnesium 
flame. The latter must therefore be useful in photographing by night, or in 
any dark or subterranean locality; the evenness and remarkable tranquil- 
lity of the flame especially commending it for this purpose. 

The present high price of magnesium, it is true, must prevent any ex- 
tended use of it for technical purposes. For example, Lenoir, of Vienna, 
charges 3 florins [1 Fl. = 51 cents] for a gram of it; hence the cost per 
minute of the light just described would be 36 Neukreutzer [1 ktr. = about 
five-sixths of a cent], and the cost during ten hours would amount to 216 
florins, while the ten kilogrammes of stearine could be procured for less 
than 14 florins. But, even at this price, it could still be used by photog- 
raphers, since it would only be required for exceedingly short intervals of 
time, and all unnecessary consumption of the wire might be prevented by 
stopping the ciock-work. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 205 


NEW FUSIBLE METAL. 


Dr. B. Wood, of Nashville, Tenn., has recently secured a patent for a new 
fusible alloy, — composed of cadmium, tin, lead, and bismuth, — which fuses 
at a temperature between 150° and 160° Fahrenheit. The constituents of 
this fusible metal may be varied according to the other desired qualities of 
the alloy, viz.: cadmium, one to two parts; bismuth, seven to eight parts; 
tin, two parts; lead, four parts. It is recommended as being especially 
adapted for all light castings requiring a more fusible material than 
Rose’s or Newton’s ‘‘fusible metal,” it having the advantage of fusing at 
more than 40” Fahrenheit lower temperature than these alloys; and, owing 
to this property, may replace many castings heretofore made only with 
amalgams. 

In a communication to the U. S. Mining Journal, Dr. Wood says: — 

The advantage of possessing the joint qualities of great fusibility, malle- 
ability, strength, ete., in a metal designed for use as above, is too evident to 
dwell upon. : 4 

One of the most useful of this class is the alloy commonly called “ fine 
solder,” consisting of one part of lead and two parts tin. It is perfectly 
malleable, highly tenacious, and melts, according to Professor Graham, at 
the temperature of 360° Fahrenheit, being the most fusible of any of the 
mixtures of lead and tin. But its melting point is too high for a solder for 
the more fusible tin-metals, such as the ordinary pewter and Britannia-ware, 
ete. Another objection is its softness. 

The alloys consisting of lead, tin, and bismuth, commonly called ‘ bismuth 
solders,” are harder and more fusible, but they are proportionably brittle. 
A common formula for very easily melted solder is, sixteen parts tin, eight 
lead, four bismuth. A more fusible mixture and the most fusible alloy 
hitherte known is that discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, consisting of three 
parts tin, five lead, eight bismuth. This melts, according to Professor 
Graham, at 202° Fahrenheit. No practical improvement has ever been 
made upon this by any combination of the constituents, although certain 
combinations possess, according to some experimenters, a lower melting 
point by one or two degrees, —a difference too slight for appreciation by 
ordinary tests. Practically, the melting point is somewhat higher, requiring 
a temperature of about 210° for perfect liquefaction. In view of its remark- 
able fusibility this alloy has received the distinguishing name of ‘‘ fusible 
metal.” It is too brittle for ordinary use as a solder, but is much employed 
for casting, and in making dies for light work, and for taking impressions 
from medallions and other objects. Melting below the temperature of 
boiling water, it may be used upon the fresh plaster cast, or other moist 
surface. But it has the disadvantage that when used at a heat barely suffi- 
cient for fusion, it is not fluid enough to take the sharp outlines, and congeals 
before it can flow into the interstices; white a small additional heat raises its 
temperature above that at which water boils, whence steam is produced, 
which spoils the work. 

Tie melting point of these alloys may, as is well known, be lowered to 
any extent by the addition of mercury; but this metal, even in small pro- 
portions, renders them so frail and brittle as to be worthless for the ordinary 
uses. It also causes them io tarnish, and is partly eliminated from the com- 
pound, being retained rather as a foreign admixture than as a chemical 
constituent, whence it occurs that these amalgams injure other metals with 

15 


206 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


which they come in contact. So, also, when used for anatomical injections, 
the mercury permeates and blackens the tissues. 

My improvement greatly obviates these defects, and meets more perfectly 
the requirements of alloys of this class. The composition composed of cad- 
mium, lead, and tin, melts somewhat under 300° Fahrenheit, or 60 or 70 
degrees below the melting point of the “ fine solder” above referred to. It 
is equal to it in malleability and tenacity, is much harder and stronger, and 
admits of a higher polish. It ranks in fusibility with the more easily melted 
“bismuth soiders,” and is believed to be greatly superior to any of them in 
ail the other requisites for this purpose. The advantages for other purposes 
of a metal possessing these qualities will readily suggest themselves. 

The composition consisting of cadmium, lead, and tin, in conjunction with 
bismuth, melts between 150° and 160° Fahrenheit, being some 50° or 60° 
below the melting point of Newton’s “fusible metal,’? mentioned above, 
corresponding very nearly with it in respect to malleability and tenacity, but 
being harder and more adhesive. It is adapted to similar purposes; and the 
low temperature at which it fuses renders it applicable in many cases where 
the other would not answer, while it is free from the objections appertaining 
to the amalgams resorted to in such cases. Asa material for anatomical 
injections it will be found superior in every respect, it is believed, to the 
amalgams in use. 


ON THE PROPERTIES OF CADMIUM. 


In a communication on the above subject to the editors of Silliman’s Jour- 
nal, by Dr. Wood, of Nashville, Tennessee, the inventor of the new fusible 
alloy, he says: — 

The remarkable degree in which cadmium promotes the fusibility of com- 
binations of lead and tin is especially worthy of note. The alloy of one to 
two parts cadmium, two parts lead, and four parts tin, is considerably more 
fusible than an alloy of one or two parts bismuth, two parts lead, and four 
parts tin; and when the Jead and tin are in larger proportion, the effect is 
still more marked. It takes less cadmium to reduce the melting point a 
certain number of degrees than it requires of bismuth, besides that the 
former does not impair the tenacity and malleability of the alloy, but 
increases its hardness and general strength. Bismuth has always held a 
preéminent rank among metals as a fluidifying agent in alloys. Its remark- 
able property of ‘‘ promoting fusibility”’ is specially noted in all our works 
on chemistry. But Ido not find it intimated in any that cadmium ever 
manifests a similar property. The fact, indeed, appears to have been wholly 
overlooked, owing perhaps to the circumstance that as an alloy with cer- 
tain metals cadmium does not promote fusibility. 

Cadmium promotes the fusibility of some metals, as copper, tin, lead, 
bismuth; whiie it does not promote the fusibility of others, as silver, anti- 
mony, mercury, etc. (/. e., does not lower the meliing point beyond the 
mean). Its alloy with lead and tin in any proportion, and with silver and 
mercury withjn a certain limit, say, equal parts, and especially if two parts 
silver and one of cadmium, or two parts cadmium and one mercury, are 
used, are tenacious and malleable; while its alloys with some malleable 


metals (gold, copper, platinum, etc.), and probably with all brittle metals, 
are brittle. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 207 


“BORACIC ACID IN THE SEA-WATER OF THE PACIFIC. 


At a recent meciing of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, the 
following paper on the above subject was read by Dr. John A. Veateh of 
San Francisco: 

The existence of boracic acid in the sea-water off the California coast was 
brought to my notice in July, 1857. I had, in the month of January of the 
previous year, discovered borate of soda and other borates in solution in the 
water of a mineral spring in Tehama county, near the upper end of the 
Sacramento valley. Prosecuting the research, I found traces of boracic acid, 
in the form of borates, in nearly all the mineral springs with which the State 
of California abounds. This was especially the case in the coast mountains. 
Borate of soda was so abundant in one particular locality, that enormous 
crystals of that salt were formed at the bottom of a shallow lake, or rather 
marsh, one or two hundred acres in extent. The crystals were hexahedral, 
with beveled or replaced edges and truncated angles; attaining the size, in 
some cases, of four inches in length by two in diameter, forming splendid 
and attractive specimens. In the same neighborhood, a ciuster of small 
thermal springs were observed holding free boracic acid in solution. <A few 
hundred yards from these, a great number of hot springs, of a temperature 
of two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit, rose up through the fissures 
of asilicious rock. These springs held a considerable quantity of borax, as 
well as free boracic acid. Many other localities furnished similar indications, 
but in a less extensive form. 

In progress of the examination, I found that the common salt (chloride of 
sodium) exposed for sale in the San Francisco-market, and which, it was 
understood, came from certain deposits of that article on the sea-margin in 
the sourthern part of the state, also furnished boracic acid. Iwas led to 
attribute it to the fact of mineral springs emptying into the lagoons furnish- 
ing the salt. It was, therefore, a matter of no small surprise, when, on a 
visit to the localities, I found no trace of acid in any of the springs in the 
adjacent district. This led to an examination of the sea-water, and a 
detection of an appreciable quantity of boracic acid therein. It was at 
Santa Barbara where I first detected it, and subsequently at various points, 
from San Diego to the Straits of Fuca. It seems to be in the form of borate 
of soda, and perhaps of lime. The quantity diminishes towards the north. 
It is barely perceptible in specimens of water brought from beyond Oregon, 
and seems to reach its maximum near San Diego. 

This peculiarity seems to extend no great distance seaward. Water taken 
thirty or forty miles west from San Francisco gave no trace of acid. In 
twelve specimens, taken at various points betwixt this port and the Sandwich 
Islands, only that nearest our coast gave boracic acid. In ten specimens 
taken up in a trip of one of the Pacific mail steamers from Panama to San 
Francisco, no acid was observed south of the Cortez Shoals. 

I have not as yet been able to obtain specimens of water south of San 
Diego, nearer the shore than the usual route of the mail steamers. Neither 
have I been able to test the breadth of this boracic acid belt any further than 
the fact above stated, of no acid being found at the distance of thirty or 
forty miles west from the Golden Gate. I think it probable that it is confined 
within the submarine ridge running parallel with the coast, the southern 
portion of which is indicated by certain shoals and island groups. The 
_source of. the acid is undoubtedly volcanic, and the seat of the volcanic 


208 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


action is most likely to exist in this submerged mountain range. It strength- 
ens the probability of the eruptive character of the Cortez Shoals. 


INFLUENCE OF ARSENIOUS ACID UPON THE WASTE OF THE 
ANIMAL TISSUE. 


According to experiments made by Prof. Schmidt and Dr. Stuerzwage, of 
Dorpat, arsenious acid, when introduced into the circulation, occasions a 
considerable diminution of the ordinary waste of the tissues. 

This decrease, which amounts to from twenty to forty per cent, occurs 
even after the administration of very small doses; more rapidly if the acid 
is injected directly into the veins; more slowly, yet with equal intensity, if 
absorbed from the intestines. The action is most striking in the. case of 
fowls, which neither vomit after injection of the arsenic nor reject their 
accustomed food; but even in cats, which are subject to vomiting after the 
injection, and must therefore be regarded as in a starving condition) the 
waste of the organism was diminished about twenty per cent, after sub- 
tracting the decrease occasioned by the mere want of food. 

This fact satisfactorily explains the fattening of horses after small doses 
of arsenious acid, a phenomenon well known to horse-dealers. 

An amount of fat and albuminous substances equivalent to the repressed 
carbonic acid and urea remains in the body and increases its weight, if the 
animal receives at the same time a sufficient amount of food. 

When larger doses of arscnious acid are given, nervous symptoms appear, 
which may be classified in two groups: spinal irritation and paralysis. To 
the first may be referred the vomiting, the accelerated respiration, the feeble 
pulse; to the last, the inclination to sleep, the weakness, and the retarded 
and labored breathing. Both may be explained by the very considerable 
congestion of the central organs which was constantly observed in post- 
mortem examinations. 

These experiments are of particular interest, since they go far to prove the 
complete reliability of the published accounts of the custom of “‘arsenic- 
eating,’ which is said to prevail among the peasantry of several Austrian 
provinces. These accounts have been time and again held up to ridicule by 
toxicologists, and, as a rule, have been received with suspicion by all scien- 
tific men. 

During the past year, a great amount of evidence bearing on this subject 
has been collected by Prof. Heisch, F. R. C., and published in the London 
Chemical News (May 19, 1860); so that if human testimony is worth any- 
thing, the fact of the existence of arsenic-eaters must be regarded as beyond 
a doubt. Prof. Heisch states that he has been informed by Dr. Lorenz, Im- 
perial Professor of Natural History, formerly of Salzburg, that he knows 
that arsenic is commonly taken by the peasants in Styria, the Tyrol, and the 
Salzkummergut, principally by huntsmen and wood-cutters, to improve their 
wind and prevent fatigue. He gives the following particulars :— 

The arsenic is taken pure in some warm liquid, as coffee, fasting, begin- 
ning with a bit the size of a pin’s head, and increasing to that of a pea. 
The complexion and general appearance are much improved, and the parties 
using it seldom look so old as they really are; but he has never heard of any 
ease in which it was used to improve personal beauty, though he cannot say 
that it never is so used. The first dose is always followed by slight symp- 
toms of poisoning, such as burning pain in the stomach and -sickness, 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 209 


but not very severe. Once begun, it can only be left off by very gradualiy 
diminishing the daily dose, as a sudden cessation causes sickness, burning 
pains in the stomach, and other symptoms of poisoning, very speedily fol- 
lowed by death. As a rule, arsenic-eaters are very long lived, and are 
peculiarly exempt from infectious diseases, fevers, etc.; but, unless they 
gradually give up the practice, invariably dic suddenly at last. In some 
arsenic works near Salzburg with which he is acquainted, he says the only 
men who can stand the work for any time are those who swaliow daily doses 
of arsenic, the fumes, etc., soon killing the others. 

Prof. E. Kopp has also stated (Comptes Rendus, 1856), that he found in the 
course of a series of experiments upon arsenic acid, — which was manu- 
factured upon a great scale, and largely employed in calico printing by 
him, —that the weight of the body rapidly increased, some twenty pounds 
having been gained in the course of the two months during which he was 
subject to absorb the acid, his hands having been frequently in contact with 
the arsenical solution: arsenic being detected the while in his solid and 
liquid excrements. As soon, however, as the exposure to the arsenic ceased, 
his weight began to decrease, and in nine or ten weeks fell back to its nor- 
mal,—one hundred and fifty pounds. It is reasonable, therefore, that 
direct, positive evidence like this, — though the instance be solitary, — where 
the subject of the experiment was a healthy, vigorous man, and a trained 
observer, ought to outweigh almost any amount of negative testimony, such 
as has been brought forward by physicians who have not witnessed similar 
effects upon their diseased patients, when the latter were treated with arseni- 
cal preparations. Another fact, says Prof. Heisch, mentioned to me by some 
friends, is well worthy of note. They say: “In this part of the world, when 
a graveyard is full, it is shut up for about twelve years, when all the graves 
which are not private property by purchase are dug up, the bones collected 
in the charnel house, the ground ploughed over, and burying begins again. 
On these occasions, the bodies of arsenic-eaters are found almost unchanged, 
and recognizable by their friends. Many people suppose that the finding of 
their bodies is the origin of the story of the vampire.” In the Medicinisches 
Jahrduch des Oster: Kaiserstautes, 1822, neuest Folge, there is a report by 
Professor Schallgrubey, of the Imperial Lyceum at Gratz, of an investigation 
undertaken by order of government into various cases of poisoning by 
arsenic. After giving details of six post-mortem examinations, he says: “The 
reason of the frequency of these sad cases appears to me to be the famili- 
arity with arsenic which exists in our country, particularly the higher parts. 
There is hardly a district in Upper Styria where you will not find arsenic in 
at least one house, under the name of hydrach. They use it for the com- 
plaints of domestic animals, to kill vermin, and as a stomachic to excite an 
appetite. I saw one peasant show another, on the point of a knife, how 
much arsenic he took daily, without which, he said, he could not live; the 
quantity I should estimate at two grains.” 

In this connection it must not be forgotten that, in the opinion of many 
scientific men, the healing action of various mineral waters may depend, in 
part at least, upon the arsenic which these springs are known to contain: 
a doctrine which is publicly taught by several of the chemical professors at 
Paris. 

F. H. Storer, Esq., in a recent communication to Silliman’s Journal on this 
subject, says :— 

Taken as a whole, the medical evidence which has fallen under our 

18* 


210 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


notice is adverse to the possibility of “ arsenic-eating,’ only in so far as 
relates to the large quantities of the poison which, as is affirmed, the human 
body can accustom itself by long-continued habit to support with impunity. 
This last inquiry, however interesting in itself, is one on which very little is 
known with certainty as yet, and is plainly of quite secondary importance, in 
a scientific point of view, to that of the beneficial action of moderate doses 
of arsenious acid, which would now appear to be proved. —Chemical News, 
et Slliman’s Journal (#. H. Storer). 

Arsenic in Fingland. — Recent English journals give the following account 
of the existence of arsenic in a brook or stream that gives name to the 
village of Whitbeck, in the county of Westmoreland. This brook rises 
among the mountains of Cumberland, and probably derives the arsenic 
which bas been found in its waters from veins of arsenical cobalt ore, 
through which its waters percolate; for a few yards above the sources of the 
stream is the entrance of a mine, which yields this arsenical ore in abun- 
dance. So marked is the character of the Whitbeck water, that fish are 
never found in it, and ducks, if confined to it, soon perish; and yet it is 
habitualiy used for every purpose by the inhabitants of Whitbeck, and with 
beneficial effects so apparent that one might be justified in paradoxically 
characterizing arsenic as a very wholesome poison. The deadly element in 
dilution is productive of the most sanitary effects, as among the Styrian 
arsenic-eaters; and the villagers generaily live to enjoy a healthy and rebust 
old age, their lives extending much beyond the average in surrounding 
towns. The traveller is struck by the handsome features and rosy cheeks of 
the children. In the case of some laborers sent to work upon a railroad in 
the vicinity, the waiter at first produced the usual soreness of mouth, but 
after this had passed away their health was extremely good. The only 
effect it produces on horses is visible in the remarkable sleekness of their 
coats. 

Arsenic in Articles of Domestic Use. —In the July number of the American 
Medical Journal Mr. M. Carey Lea calls attention to the great extension 
which the use of arsenical pigments has obtained in manufactures intended 
for household use. He shows that the greater part of green wall-papers, 
green borders, and green window-shades, are colored with Scheele’s green or 
Schweinfurth green, both preparations of arsenic: in the former being the 
arsenite, and the latter the aceto-arsenite of copper. 

Two specimens of wall-paper, one of border and three of window-shade 
material (ail that he submitted to examination), were found to be colored 
with these pigments. He cites numerous instances where these materials 
have proved prejudicial to the health of those who inhabited the rooms in 
which they were contained. 

It is a common idea that the quantity of this substance used in coloring is 
so small that its poisonous character is unimportant. This is a grave error. 
Mr. Lea obtained, by precipitating with nitrate of silver, from two square 
inches of material prepared for window-shades, no less than six grains of the 
yellow compound of arsenious acid with silver. If we suppose this to be 
the salt 3AgO, AsO3 described by Filhol,— it corresponds to a quan- 
tity of white arsenic (arsenious acid), which, in an ordinary window-shade, 
three feet by eight, would amount to no Jess than one-third of an avoirdupois 
pound! When aroom is papered with paper colored with arsenic, it is safe 
to say that many pounds of this deleterious substance are spread over the 
walls. 


~ 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 211 


Those who are not familiar with chemical pursuits, and who may wish to 
test specimens .of green material for themselves, may easily do so in the 
foliowing manner. A piece of the size of the top of a tumbler is taken, 
placed in a glass, covered with strong ammonia, and left to stand for a few 
hours. As the green arsenical pigments always contain copper, which im- 
parts a biue color to ammonia, the absence of such a coioration may be 
taken as a probable proof of the absence of Scheeie’s or Schweinfurth green. 
If the blue coloration makes itself evident, the liquid is to be poured carefully 
off, so as to be quite clear, and a fragment of lunar caustic, previously 
wiped perfectly clean with a wet cloth, is to be dropped into it. If the 
caustic turns yellow, and diffuses a slight yellow cloudiness, either perma- 
nent or soon disappearing, arsenic is present. 

M. Chevallier has recently published a book devoted expressly to this 
subject, the extension of which has attracted much attention, particularly 
since arsenical dyes have been used for material for ladies’ dresses, and his 
work has been already translated into German. It is asserted that the 
French government is taking active steps to put a stop to this dishonorable 
trade, and we hope that legislative enactments to restrain it may be put in 
force in the United States. 


NEW METALLIC CEMENTS. 


M. Greshiem states that an alloy of copper and mercury, prepared as fol- 
lows, is capable of attaching itself firmly to the surfaces of metal, glass, and 
porcelain. From twenty to thirty parts of finely divided copper, obtained by 
the reduction of oxide of copper with hydrogen, or by precipitation from 
solution of its sulphate with zinc, are made into a paste with oil of vitriol 
and seventy parts of mereury added, the whole being well triturated. When 
the amalgamation is complete, the acid is removed by washing with boiling 
water, and the compound allowed to cool. In ten or twelve hours it becomes 
sufficiently hard to receive a brilliant polish, and to scratch the surface of tin 
or gold. By heat it assumes the consistence of wax, and does not contract 
on cooling. 

New Cement for filling Decayed Teeth, and for other purposes. —M. Feich- 
tinger communicates the following receipt to the Repertoire de Pharmacie: — 
Take of powdered glass one part, oxide of zinc three parts, and mix them 
intimately. The two substances must be in impalpable powder, and the latter 
must be free from carbonate of zinc. Then take of a solution of chloride 
of zinc (density 1.5 to 1.6) fifty parts, borax one part. Dissolve the borax 
in a little hot water, and pour it into the chloride of zinc; borate of zine 
is precipitated, which disappears on agitating the mixture. To make the 
cement, mix the powder with enough of the solution to form a stiff paste. 
Only so much as may be wanted at the time should be mixed, as the com- 
pound quickly hardens. In the course of a little time it becomes as hard as 
marble, and remains so, even after prolonged contact with water. If the 
ingredients are pure, the cement is perfectly white. — Chemical News. 


PROCESS FOR SILVERING ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, AND MINERAL 
SUBSTANCES. 


Liquor No. 1.—Take two parts, by weight, of caustic lime, five of sugar 
ef miik or grape sugar, two of gallic acid, and make of them a mixture in 


212 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


six hundred and fifty parts of distilled water; filter, protected from the air 
as much as possible, and put in a closely stopped bottle until the moment 
of using. 

Liquor No. 2. — Dissolve twenty pints of nitrate of_silver in twenty parts 
solution of ammonia, and add to this solution six hundred and fifty parts of 
distilled water. 

The two preceding liquors are mixed in equal quantities, and, after having 
been well agitated, are filtered. 

As the solution of ammonia of commerce has not always the same degree 
of concentration, it would be better, perhaps, to dissolve the nitrate of silver 
destined for the liquor No. 2, first in distilled water, then mix this solution 
with liquor No. 1, and only then add ammonia in quantity sufiicient to entirely 
clear the mixture, taking care always not to maintain an excess greater than 
is necessary to prevent the silver from being precipitated. 

Suppose it is intended to silver silk, cotton, woollen, etc., we commence by 
washing the substance clean; this done, we immerse it for a moment in the 
saturated solution of gallic acid; then withdraw it to plunge it for a second 
in another solution composed of twenty parts of nitrate of silver to one 
thousand parts of distilled water. These alternate immersions are continued, 
until the substance, from being dark, becomes of a brilliant tint; after which 
it is plunged in a bath composed of a mixture of the two liquors, Nos. 1 and 
2. When itis completely silvered it is withdrawn, and boiled in a solution in 
water of a salt of tartar, and there remains nothing more to be done but a 
last washing and drying. 

Stucco and pottery ought, before being submitted to the operation, to be 
covered with a coat of stearin or varnish. 

The silvered surfaces are then washed with distilled water, dried by free air 
and heat, and in the last place covered with a layer of varnish. The deposi- 
tion of silver can be accelerated by the employment of heat; in this case the 
temperature depends upon the nature of the objects to be submiited to the 
operation. 

As for the metals, we commence by cleaning them with nitrie acid; rub 
them afterwards with a mixture of cyanide of potassium and powdered sil- 
ver; then, after washing with water, they are plunged alternately into liquors 
Nos. 1 and 2, until they appear sufficiently silvered. If working with iron, 
it should be first immersed in a solution of sulphate of copper. — Jour. de 
Chim. Med. 


ON THE THEORY OF DYEING. 


The following is an abstract of an article on the above subject, by Professor 
Bolley, of Zurich, Switzerland, published in the L. E. and D. Philosophical 
Magazine, for December, 1859: — 

Two questions have long been agitated among chemists interested in the 
theory of dyeing. 1. In what part of the colored fibre is the coloring mat- 
ter situated? Does it merely adhere to the surface, or does it penetrate the 
entire substance of the cell-walls of such fibres as cotton and flax? Or, lastly, 
in the case of such fibres, is it stored up in-the interior of the cells? 2. What 
is the nature of the union between the dye and the fibre? Is it a chemical 
combination, or is it due to mere surface attraction? After comparing the 
various theories which have been advanced during the last century and dis- 
cussing the merits of each, the author records the results of his own experi- 
ments, from which it appears that wool and silk, in all cases where they have 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 218 


- not been dyed with colors in a mere state of suspension,! seem to be impreg- 
nated with the dye throughout their entire mass; while in the case of cotton, 
by far the larger portion of the coloring matter adheres to the surface of the 
fibre, the penetration of the cell-walls by the dye being either very slight or 
altogether wanting. 

That the theory proposed by Mr. Crum, of England, that the tubular form 
of the cotton fibres is an essential condition to their taking a dye, is unfound- 
ed, appears from the fact that the amorphous cotton-gelatine precipitated 
from its solution in cuprate of ammonia may be mordanted and dyed like 
ordinary cotton. In like manner sulphate of baryta and other pulverulent 
mineral bodies may be mordanted and dyed with decoctions of dyewoods. 

With regard to the nature of the force which binds the coloring matter to 
the fibre,— whether or no it be chemical attraction,— Boliey concludes that 
there is no sufficient reason for accepting the view, principally developed by 
Chevreul (and by Kuhlmann, Comptes Rendus, Tomes xlii., xliii., et xliv.), 
that dyeing is a direct consequence of chemical affinity. He believes that 
the power possessed by fibres of attracting certain bodies — whether salts 
or coloring matters or both — from their solutions, belongs to that class of 
phenomena which results from the action of finely divided mineral or orga- 
nic bodies (charccal or bone-black, for example) on such solutions. The dis- 
tinction between the action of charcoal and of fibres in thus removing saline 
matters, or dyes, from their solutions, is one of degree only, the nature of the 
operation being identical in either case. 

A given weight of well prepared animal charcoal can, as a rule, deprive a 
larger quantity of liquid of its color than an equal weight of wool or silk. 
Neither wool nor silk can remove ail the color from a solution as charcoal 
can, their effect extending only to a certain degree of dilution beyond which 
the particles of coloring matter resist their attraction. Dyes which may have 
been taken up without a mordant by wool, or especially by silk, may be 
removed again by long washing in water, a fact which is not true in the ease 
of charcoal, or only toa very slight extent. The atiraction of coloring mat- 
ters for water is therefore more completely overcome by charcoal than by 
animal fibre; but even the cleanest vegetable fibres, as unmordanted and 
completely bleached cotton, possess a certain power of attracting coloring 
matter. That cotton should have less effect in this matter than wool or silk 
is not surprising, in view of the great difference in the structure of cotton 
fibre as compared with that of the two substances last mentioned. It is 
well known that wool and silk, in consequence of their physical constitution, 
belong to the class of strongly absorbent or hygroscopic substances, t. e., in 
consequence of a certain porosity or looseness of their particles they swell up 
when moist and become easily penetrated by a liquid throughout their entire 
mass; on the other hand the cell walls of cotton fibres are denser, less pene- 
trable, and, at the same time, thinner, and therefore unable to contain the 
same quantity of liquid. 

It has been often urged that since fibres, especially tlrose of animal origin, 
not only exert an attraction for salts, etc., but also possess the power of 
decomposing some of them, their action must be chemical. But in this 
respect the behavior of charcoal is similar to that of the fibres. So, too, with 
regard to the increased attraction for color exhibited by mordanted cotton, 


1 In which case the ecloring matter only adheres as a crust to the surface of the 
fibre. 


214 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


which is on a par with the fact observed by Stenhouse, that the decolorizing 
power of wood-charcoal is considerably increased by precipitating alumina 
upon it. 

According to the author, mordants act by producing insoluble colors (lakes). 
Their behavior towards coloring matters in solution must be ascribed to 
chemical affinity, with which, however, the fibres themselves have nothing 
to do. 


SULPHUR-BLEACHING. 


Schoenbein, of Basle, has discovered some exceedingly interesting facts 
relative to this process. The fumes of burning sulphur, as is well known, 
consist of sulphurous acid, and are extensively employed, especially in 
bleaching straw hats. The moistened straw, exposed for a time to the action 
of the fumes, acquires the desired whiteness. Chemical lecturers are in the 
habit of illustrating this decolorizing power by immersing a flower, as, for 
example, a red rose, in sulphurous acid gas, or its solution in water. The 
color is discharged in a short time. Schoenbein has found that the bleach- 
ing holds good only for a certain medium range of temperature. A rose 
thus bleached has its color restored if subjected to the temperature of two 
hundred and twelve degrees, as may be conveniently done by holding it in 
a stream of vapor from boiling water. On cooling to the ordinary tempera- 
ture, it appears white again, and its color may be thus alternately restored 
and discharged for a great number of times. Schoenbein has also found 
that water colored by infusion of a red dahlia, and then bleached by sulphur- 
ous acid, yields, by cooling, an ice which at twenty dezrees below zero is 
visibly red, but on warming becomes colorless again. 


MAUVE DYE. 


This exquisitely beautiful dye for silks is prepared by taking equivalent 
proportions of sulphate of aniline and bichromate of potash, dissolving them 
in water, mixing, and ailowing them to stand for several hours. The whole 
is then thrown upon a filter, and the black precipitate which has formed is 
washed and dried. This black substance is then digested in coal-tar naphtha, 
to extract a brown, resinous substance; and finally digested with alcohol, to 
dissolve out the coloring matter, which is left behind, on distilling off the 
spirit, as a coppery, friable mass. This is the dyeing agent producing all the 
charming varieties of purples known by the name mauve, which, as it appears 
to us, somewhat inappropriately, has been given to this color. The partic- 
ularity of these purples consists in the peculiar blending of the red and blue 
of which they are constituted. These hues admit of almost infinite variation ; 
consequently, we may have many varieties of red mauve, and as many of 
blue mauve, and any depth of tint can be secured. The permanence of these 
hitherto fugitive combinations is their strongest recommendation. 


NEW BLACK DYE. 


A new black dye has been recently discovered in Algeria, which is the 
subject of considerable interest among French chemists and manufacturers 
at the present time. The discovery has been made by M. Muratere, and is a 
vegetable substance gathered from a tree which grows in immense profusion 
ail over the colony. It is destined, according to the report made upon its 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 215 


' merits, to replace every other substance in use for the same purpose up to 
this day, and is more brilliant than any dye hitherto known. The discoverer 
has registered his patent for its use under the name of “Algerian Campeachy 
Wood.” 


DECOLORATION OF INDIGO BY SESQUI-OXIDE OF IRON. 


According to Kuhlman, when a solution of blue indigo is acted upon, at 
the temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees (C), by hydrated oxide of 
iron, its color is almost immediately completely destroyed. The same thing 
occurs with a number of other coloring matters. In noticing this fact, 
Barreswil suggests that persulphate of iron may perhaps be applied in 
calico-printing as a discharge for indigo, and also in bleachin® blue rags for 
paper-making. — Repertoire de Chimie Appliquée, October, 1859. 


ON THE RENDERING OF FABRICS INCOMBUSTIBLE. 


The Répertoire de Chimie publishes a paper from the well-known chemists 
MM. Deebereiner and Célsner, on the various methods for rendering stuffs 
incombustible, or at least less inflammable than they naturally are. The 
substances employed for this purpose are borax, alum, soluble glass, and - 
phosphate of ammonia. For wool and common stuffs any one of these 
salts will do; but fine and light tissues, which are just the most liable to 
catching fire, cannot be treated in the same way. Borax renders fine textile 
fabrics stiff; it causes dust, and will swell out under the smoothing-iron; so 
does alum, besides weakening the fibres of the stuff, and making it tear easily. 
Soluble glass both stiffens and weakens the stuff, depriving it both of elas- 
ticity and tenacity. Phosphate of ammonia alone has none of these incon- 
veniences. It may be mixed with a certain quantity of sal-ammoniac, and > 
then introduced into the starch prepared for stiffening the linen; or else it 
may be dissolved in twenty parts of water, in weight, to one of phosphate, 
and the stuffs steeped in the solution, then allowed to dry, and ironed as 
usual. Phosphate of ammonia is cheap enough to allow of its introduction 
into common use, so that it may be employed at each wash. 


STEINBUHL-YELLOW, A NEW KIND OF CHROME-YELLOW. 


Under the above name a yellow color has been for some time in commerce, 
which is quite certain to find much favor, although its price is far higher 
than that of the ordinary chrome-yellow. It is of a splendid yellow, and 
differs essentially in its tint from the best samples of chrome-yellow. Tis 
components are chromic acid, lime, and potash; and when stirred for a short 
time with cold water, it parts with chromate of lime. 

The poisonous qualities of chromic acid and its soluble salts, and the cir- 
cumstance that the color parts with perceptible although not large quaniities 
of chromic acid to cold water, render the Steinbiihl-yellow an extremely 
dangerous coloring-matter; and its employment in confectionery, and the 
like uses, must not be thought of. ° 


PROCESS FOR GIVING OBJECTS A PEARLY LUSTRE. 


To produce the irridescence of the mother-of-pearl on stone, glass, metal, 
resin, paper, silk, leather, etc., Reinsch adopts the following process: Two 


216 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


parts of solution of copal, two parts of that of sandarach, and four parts of ° 
solution of damara resin (equal parts of resin and absolute alcohol), are mixed 
with half their volume of oil of bergamot or rosemary. This mixture is to 
be evaporated to the thickness of castor oil. If this varnish be then drawn 
by the means of a feather or brush over the surface of some water, it will 
form a beautifully irridescent pellicle. This film is now to be applied to the 
objects which are to be rendered irridescent. The vessel in which the water 
is contained, on which the pellicle has been produced, must, therefore, be as 
large, or larger, than these objecis. The water should have about five per 
cent of pure solution of lime added to it; its temperature should be kept at 
about seventy-two degrees. The objects to be dried in the sun. — Journal of 
Pharmacy. 


USEFUL APPLICATION OF AMMONIACAL CHLORIDE OF ZINC. 


By dissolving equal equivalents of chloride of zinc and sal ammoniac, a 
double salt, composed of these two substances, readily erystallizes in six- 
sided prisms. This salt possesses the power of dissolving oxide of copper 
and oxide of iron. It is, therefore, possible, by means of a concentrated 
solution of the ammoniacal chloride of zinc, to polish rusty spots on iron 
and copper. In tinning copper vessels, the solution of ammoniacal chloride 
of zinc is of great advantage: the surface to be tinned is treated with it, and 
the vessel placed over a charcoal fire; then, when the surface appears per- 
fectly bright, the tin is poured in, so that it may spread over the surface. 
This method is also applicable for coating with lead. — Pharmaceutisches 
Central Blatt. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF CARBONIC ACID IN CONNECTION WITH 
HYPOCHLORITE OF LIME FOR BLEACHING PAPER-STOCK. 


An apparatus, devised by Didot and Barruel,of Paris,for introducing car- 
bonic acid, prepared by burning charcoal, into the solution of hypochlorite 
of lime (bleaching salt), while the latter is in contact with the fibre which is 
to be bleached, is described in the Noy. (1859) No. of Barreswil’s Hépertoire 
de Chimie Appliquée, vol. i. p. 457. 

The carbonic acid, on being introduced into the solution of bleaching salt, 
unites with the lime, thus setting free hypochlorous acid, the decolorizing 
action of which is infinitely more energetic when it is at liberty than when 
in combination with a base. 

This process, says Barreswil, is of extreme simplicity, and one is at a loss 
to comprehend why it had not been sooner invented, in view of the fact that 
each and all of its phases have been so long and so well known. 

In order to judge of the practicability of the new process —in so far as 
concerns difference of price, strength, and whiteness of the paper, and the 
duration of the operations in the two systems (new and old) — of bleaching, 
comparative experiments were instituted, by the Messrs. Firmin Didot, upon 
carefully assorted rags; the cost of the chemicals and labor, and the 
amount of time required, having been exactly noted. After bleaching, the 
pulp was converted into paper. The different papers were then carefully 
tested. As the result of these experiments, it appeared that the new process 
was more energetic and more rapid than the old method, au chlore [chlorure 2] 
iquide (with solution of bleaching salt), and that in many cases it is also 
equally energetic with the process in which chlorine gas is employed. Over 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 217 


the latter it has the advantage of not destroying to so great an extent the 
fibre of the pulp. 

Since the details of the process, which for that matter consists merely of 
arrangements for thoroughly washing and cleansing the carbonic acid 
employed, — the latter being then introduced into the bleaching vats, just as 
if it were steam, through coils of pipe pierced with holes, which are placed 
at the bottom of the vats, — cannot well be explained without a diagram, 
we must refer the reader who may desire these to the original article, in 
which the apparatus is figured. — Silliman’s Journal, F'. H. Storer. 


NEW METHOD OF OBTAINING CARBONIC ACID. 


M. M. Meschelguck and Lionnet have proposed to the French Academy a 
new and economical mode of obtaining carbonic acid. It is known that the 
temperature at which the carbonate of lime is decomposed when vapor of 
water is passed over it, is lower in proportion as the amount of moisture 
present is increased; in fact, it will even give off all its acid if heated to 
212° in a current of the vapor. The proposed new method of procedure is 
as follows: Strong earthen retorts, filled with limestone, are plac@d in a 
reverberating furnace, and the temperature is raised as needed. The retorts 
communicate, at the back, with vapor generators, by means of tubes fur- 
nished with cocks. When the retorts are at a uniform red heat, the vapor is 
admitted by opening the cocks, and quantities of carbonic acid gas are at 
once generated and received into a gasometer. 


THE ECONOMY OF GLUTEN. 


In our starch factories an enormous amount of gluten is annually wasted, 
or but imperfectly saved. Walter Crum, the well-known industrial chemist 
of Glasgow, has devised a means of utilizing this material in dyeing and 
calico printing. It is well known that many colors, for example, cochineal 
and archil, which may be readily fixed on wool and silk (animal fibres), 
have so little affinity for cotton and vegetable fibres as to render the dyeing 
of the latter with them very difficuit or impossible. But a few years ago, a 
process which is technically designated the animalization of cotion was intro- 
duced, consisting in coating the cotton fibre with an animal substance. For 
this purpose, albumen from eggs and blood has been hitherto employed. 
Crum accomplishes the same object by the use of gluten, which is a vege- 
table product of the same composition as albumen, but much cheaper than 
the latter, especially when occurring as a refuse in the starch manufacture. 


FILTER FOR CORROSIVE LIQUIDS. 


Boettger, of Frankfort, employs for the filtration of corrosive liquids a 
glass funnel, the neck of which is loosely plugged with gun cotton. This 
substance, properly prepared, has the proper fibrous, porous texture for an 
efficient filter, and being a product of the action of the most corrosive 
agent, viz., mixed sulphuric and nitric acids, is scarcely attacked, even in 
the slightest degree, at medium temperatures, by any single agent or solvent, 
so far as known, except acetic ether. It may be employed for filtering 
strong nitric acid, fuming oil of vitriol, permanganate of potash, strong 
caustic potash lye, and aqua-regia. Even chromic acid may be’ separated 
from its mother liquors by this filter. Its use in drying crystals which have 

19 


218 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


deposited from corrosive liquids is obvious. The gun cotton employed by 
Boettger is probably that obtained by the action on cotton of the strongest 
sulphuric and nitric acids, as that prepared by weaker acids, or by sulphuric 
acid and saltpetre, is soluble in a variety of agents. — Silliman’s Journal. 


PREPARATION OF SOLUBLE SPICES. 


Among the most curious of the modern discoveries in chemistry are the 
methods of producing, from highly noxious and offensive materials, com- 
pounds which possess the properties of the most agreeable flavors and 
essences, and which serve in actual use as substitutes for the preparations 
before made from fruits and flowers. At the present time, some of the 
choicest extracts for culinary purposes are produced from the fetid fusel oil, 
which is separated from crude brandies and whiskies in the process of recti- 
fication, and the most delicious perfumes from substances extracted from 
the coal-tar of the gas-works, and even from still more offensive products. 

A peculiar disgusting compound of sulphur and carbon, obtained as a 
liquid by condensing the vapor of sulphur after passing it over red hot 
charcoal, and known as sulphuret of carbon, has long been known as a 
powerful solvent of India-rubber, for which purpose it has of late years been 
manufactured in large quantities. It is distinguished for its pungent taste, 
and a peculiar fetid odor, due to the sulphureted hydrogen which adheres to 
it. This compound has recently come into use in France, under a patent of 
M. Bonieére, of Rouen, for making what he designates soluble spices, and 
other soluble preparations of food. By means of it he dissolves out the 
active principles of the spices, and also of other strongly flavored articles 
used as condiments, such as garlic, onions, shallot, and various fruits, and 
causing these to be taken up by some inert body, as gum, sugar of milk, 
common salt, or other substance adapted to the particular extract, he pre- 
pares them for the use of the table, putting them up in vessels intended to 
be placed upon consoles or etageres, and made aitractive by the taste 
displayed in their ornamentation. 

In his process the first object is to purify and deodorize the sulphuret of 
earbon. This is done in a peculiar distilling apparatus; the liquid as it enters 
the first still, falling upon a concentrated solution of caustic potash, or of 
soft sulphate of lead, heated to 140° or 145° Fahrenheit. The vapor then 
passes successively to other stills, each of which contains solutions of some 
compounds with an alkaline or metallic base, as of potash, salts of lead, 
iron, copper, etc., or of barytes. It then condenses in the worm of the still, 
and is collected under distilled water in a small glass vessel. The sulphuret 
can also be rectified by simply bringing it in contact with concentrated solu- 
tions of the chemical reagents named, and decanting it successively from 
these many times. When rectified, the disagreeable smell of sulphureted 
hydrogen has entirely disappeared, and an ethereal product is obtained, 
somewhat resembling chloroform in its odor, and possessing solvent pro- 
perties far superior to the impure commercial article, and leaving no trace 
after evaporation. It is then ready for the preparation of soluble spices, 
which, as in the case of pepper, for example, is conducted as follows: The 
spice being ground to powder, is put in iron wire cages, with sheet-iron 
bottoms. These cages being set in a cylindrical vessel to which they are 
fitted, the purified sulphuret of carbon is admitted through the bottom of the 
outer cylinder, and, flowing up through, the cages, dissolves out the active 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 219 


principle of the spice; and, by a side pipe of glass placed near the top, the 
liquid charged with this principle is let off into a caldron or still. In this 
is placed some substance, as common salt, or saltpetre, sugar of milk or 
other sugar, or some other matter, as dextrine, gum, or flour, for absorbing 
and becoming saturated with the extract. The lower portion of this still is 
double, and steam at the temperature of 140° to 145° Fahrenheit being intro- 
duced in the space at the bottom, the sulphuret of carbon is entirely 
volatilized, and, passing through the worm of a condenser, is recovered, so as 
to be used again in successive operations, while the extract is held by the 
absorbing substance placed in the still. The length of time required for 
continuing the process, in order to extract all the active principle, is indi- 
cated by the color of the liquid which flows through the glass tube leading 
from the cylinder to the still. The connection between the two is then 
closed, and the liquor remaining in the cylinder is allowed to flow out 
through the bottom; after which, steam is admitted to carry off the last 
portions of sulphuret of carbon, which is collected and condensed in another 
vessel. By this process the active principle of the spice or fruit is entirely 
removed from its natural ligneous vehicle, and transferred entirely to sugar, 
salt, or gum, and this retains no trace of the sulphuret of carbon; and any 
amount of concentration can be given to the products, according to the rela- 
tive proportions of the absorbent and of the spice employed. 

In the treating of garlic, onions, and such vegetables, the juice expressed by 
hydraulic pressure is mixed with the sulphuret of carbon, which dissolves 
its active principle. 


IMPROVEMENT IN SOAPS. 


. Several improvements in the manufacture of soaps and cleansing prepara- 
tions have been recently patented by Mrs. Rowland, of London. They 
depend chiefly upon the introduction of certain chemical compounds into 
ordinary soaps, by which their detersive properties are greatly increased. 
The soap being dissolved in warm water, ammonia, or some ammoniacal 
compound, is added to the solution, together with some liquid hydrocarbons, 

“or an equivalent substance, as spirits of turpentine, coal-tar, naphtha, cam- 
phene, or some of the similar compounds derived frem the distillation of 
bituminous matters. The proportions of the mixtures are determined by 
the nature of the soap, and the use required. On account of the volatility 
of the substances added, much heat is avoided in mixing. It is well to add 
some flour, dextrine, or some gelatinous or mucilaginous substance which is 
soluble in water, as it serves as a vehicle for holding the other substances 
in suspension or mechanical combination. Perfumes or essential oils are 
introduced to disguise the odor of the chemical ingredients. 

The following is a more particular description of one of the processes. 
Six pounds of soap are dissolved in two pounds of warm water. To 
the same quantity of water are added about three and a half ounces of 
flour, starch, dextrine, oatmeal, or some other substance; gelatine, glue, or 
other gelatinous or mucilaginous substances may be employed, which will 
give body to the composition, and cause the ingredients to cohere. A paste 
is thus prepared by boiling, and is added while hot to the solution of soap, 
and the whole is then heated and stirred till the ingredients are thoroughly 
incorporated together. It is now taken off the fire, and the stirring is con- 
tinued till the temperature has fallen to about 100°, when about fourteen 
ounces of spirits of turpentine, naphtha, camphene, benzole, or other such 


a ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


substance, is added, together with an equal quantity of a saturated solu- 
tion of carbonate of ammonia. The mixture should again be thoroughly 
stirred, and then turned into suitable vessels and hermetically sealed. To 
the carbonate of ammonia it may be well to add one-eighth its weight of the 
liquid or caustic ammonia of the Pharmacopeias. 


NEW METHOD OF VULCANIZING INDIA-RUBBER. 


When flowers of sulphur and dry hypochlorite of lime (bleaching powder) 
are shaken together, a very strong odor of chloride of sulphur is immediately 
developed. If the mixture be somewhat forcibly rubbed in a mortar, eleva- 
tion of temperature ensues, the sulphur softens, and the mixture becomes 
solid, while abundant vapors are evolved. When a much larger amount of 
sulphur than that of the hypochlorite is used, and friction is avoided when 
the two are blended, a mixture is obtained, which, being added to the 
caoutchouc paste — either with or without the addition of inert matters, such 
as chalk, oxide of zinc, etc., serving to give body to the product — effects 
the vulcanization of the latter, either at the ordinary temperature or when 
gently heated. By this means objects of any thickness can be uniformly 
vulcanized. 

If, instead of employing an excess of sulphur, an excess of the hypochlorite 
be introduced into the mixture, and this be agitated, so much heat will be 
developed that the vessel containing the mixture can no longer be held in 
the hands; if the flask be closed, the action becomes so violent that the cork 
will be blown out, or the flask broken by a violent explosion.—M. De 
Clauberg, Comptes Rendus. 


IMPERISHABLE INK. 


Mr. John Spiller has communicated to the London Chemical News a paper 
on the employment of’ carbon as a means of permanent record. The imper- 
ishable nature of carbon, in its various forms of lamp-black, ivory-black, 
wood-charcoal, and graphite, or black lead, holds out much greater promise 
of being usefully employed in the manufacture of a permanent writing 
material; since, for this substance, in its elementary condition, and at ordi- 
nary temperatures, there exists no solvent nor chemical reagent capable of 
effecting its alteration. 

The suggestion relative to the mode of applying carbon to these purposes, 
which it is intended more particularly now to enunciate, depends on the fact 
of the separation of carbon from organic compounds, rich in that element, 
sugar, gum, etc., by the combined operation of heat and of chemical reagents, 
such as sulphuric and phosphoric acids, which exert a decomposing action in 
the same direction; and by such means to effect the deposition of the carbon 
within the pores of the paper by a process of development to be performed 
after the fluid writing ink has been to a certain extent absorbed into its sub- 
stance,— a system of formation, by which a considerable amount of resistance, 
both to chemical and external influences, appears to be secured. An ink of 
the following composition has been made the subject of experiment : — 


Concentrated sulphuric acid, deeply colored with indigo, 1 fluid ounce. 
Water, : : : ‘ ; : : ; : . ayy e 
Leaf sugar, : ‘ : 3 : , 1 ounce troy. 
Streng mucilage of gum-arabic,  . - : : 2to 3 fluid cunces, 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 231 


Writing traced with a quill or gold pen dipped in this ink dries to a pale 
blue color; but if now a heated iron be passed over its surface, or the page 
of manuscript be held near a fire, the writing will quickly assume a jet black 
appearance, resulting from the carbonization of the sugar by the warm acid, © 
and will have become so firmly engrafted into the substance of the paper as 
to oppose considerable difficulty to its removal or erasure by the knife. On 
account of the depth to which the written characters usually penetrate, the 
sheets of paper selected for use should be of the thickest make, and good 
white cartridge paper, or that known as “cream laid,” preferred to such as 
are colored blue wiih ultramarine; for, in the latter case, a bleached halo is 
frequently perceptible around the outline of the letters, indicating the pariial 
destruction of the coloring matter by the lateral action of the acid. 

The writing produced in this manner seems indelible; it resists the action 
of “salts of lemon,” and of oxalic, tartaric, and diluted hydro-chloric acids, 
agents which render nearly illegible the traces of ordinary black writing ink; 
neither do alkaline solutions exert any appreciable action on the carbon ink. 
This material possesses, therefore, many advantageous qualities which would 
recommend its adoption in cases where the question of permanence is of 
paramount importance. But it must, on the other hand, be allowed that such 
an ink, in its present form, would but inefficiently fulfil many of the require- 
ments necessary to bring it into common use. The peculiar method of 
development rendering the application of heat imperative, and that of a 
temperature somewhat above the boiling point of water, together with the 
circumstance that it will be found impossible with a thin sheet of paper to 
write on both sides, must certainly be -counted among its more prominent 
disadvantages. 


ACTION OF PROLONGED HEAT AND WATER ON DIFFERENT 
SUBSTANCES. 


Mr. H. C. Sorby communicates to the French Academy an account of some 
experiments he has made on the above subject. He put different substances 
and various solutions in glass tubes, sealed them hermetically, and then 
placed them in the boiler of a high-pressure engine, and kept them there, 
exposed to a temperature ranging from one hundred and forty-five to one 
hundred and fifty degrees Centigrade, for some months. Others he placed in 
an ordinary kitchen boiler, in which the temperature varied from seventy- 
five to one hundred degrees Centigrade. The first facts noticed are the 
decomposition of the glass tubes employed. Crown glass resisted the action 
best, — better even than Bohemian, — but it was sometimes acted on at but 
slightly elevated temperatures. English flint glass was easily decomposed 
by the prolonged action of water below one hundred degrees. <A fragment 
of flint or Bohemian glass, enclosed in a tube of crown glass with a little 
water, was more quickly decomposed than with much water. A moderately 
strong solution of nitric acid had little or no action on flint glass at one 
hundred and forty-five or one hundred and fifty degrees, while pure water 
soon changed it into a white crystalline mass. Wood, exposed to a tempera- 
ture of one hundred and forty-five degrees, without water, underwent but 
little change, while some with water became quite black. A brilliant black 
substance separated from the wood, but the water remained quite clear, 
although it had an acid reaction, due, no doubt, to acetic acid, and when the 

19* 


222 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tube was opened a good deal of gas escaped. Some of the results obtained 
illustrate the pseudomorphosis of minerals. — Chemical News. 


NEW PROCESS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SULPHURIC ACID.— BY 
MR. SHANK. 


This process, the success of which is as yet very problematical, is based 
upon the separation of the acid from gypsum by means of two successive 
chemical reactions, namely, the decomposition of the sulphate of lime by 
means of chloride of lead, and that of the sulphate of lead thus resulting 
by means of hydrochloric acid. For this purpose, in a cistern of greater 
length than depth, formed of sheet-lead, or masonry, or any other material 
not affected by acids, are placed eighty-six parts of gypsum, or eighty-six 
parts of calcined plaster, and one hundred and forty parts of chloride of 
lead. To these are added a large quantity of warm water, and the whole 
well mixed and stirred. An immediate reaction takes place, sulphate of lead 
forming as a precipitate, while chloride of calcium goes into re-solution. The 
stirring continues until the supernatant liquid is free of lead, which is to be 
ascertained by the usual reagents. The liquor is then removed by decanta- 
tion, while the sulphate of lead remains in the cistern. For the decompo- 
sition of the sulphate of lead, hydrochloric acid is added in somewhat larger 
proportion than that indicated by the chemical equivalents, the temperature 
of the mixture is raised, and the reaction is finished. The chloride of lead 
which forms is precipitated, while the supernatant liquid is nothing but a 
solution of sulphuric acid. When cold, this is decanted and concentrated by 
evaporation to the strength required in commerce. The chloride of lead 
remaining. in the cistern is washed with cold water, which removes the 
greater portion of the adhering sulphuric acid, whereupon the same propor- 
tion of sulphate of lime is added as before, and the whole process is recom- 
menced. In this way the chloride of lead is used over and over again, 
without any loss but that caused unavoidably during the manipulation. 


CHEMICAL SUMMARY. 


An Impervious Paper has been patented in England, which is prepared in 
the following manner: A solution of soap is added to the paper-pulp in the 
proportion of two ounces of solid soap to every gallon of pulp, and when 
thoroughly incorporated, enough of a solution of alum is added to decom- 
pose the soap and form a compound of the fatty acid and alumina. This 
alumina-soap replaces the sizing, and renders the paper manufactured from 
it impervious to water. 

Extract of Hops. — M. Ramont asserts that he has obtained, by treating heps 
by boiling water in a close vessel, an extract, which he calls houblonine, which 
contains all the active, aromatic, bitter, and astringent principles of the hops; 
and that by means of this extract the manufacture of ale may be greatly 
ameliorated. — Cosmos. 

Means of Removing the Rancidity of Butter. — Wild recommends that the 
butter should be kneaded with fresh milk and then with pure water. He 
states that by this treatment the butter is rendered as fresh and pure in flavor 
as when recently made. He ascribes this result to the fact that butyric acid, 
to which the rancid odor and taste are owing, is readily soluble in fresh milk, 
and is thus removed. — Pharm. Jour. 


. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. IPS 


Paper Parchment.—Mr. Thomas Taylor communicates to the Chemical 
News a new process of making this curious substance. Instead of immers- 
ing the paper in dilute sulphuric acid, he employs a concentrated solution of 
chloride of zine. The paper is reduced in volume, but made tougher, stronger, 
and semi-transparent. The highest effect is produced by using the solution 
hot. Pieces of paper thus saturated can be united by ironing. 

On the Cleaning of Glasses, etc.— There is often a difficulty in cleaning 
glasses or porcelain capsules to which organic matters have adhered and in 
course of time have become so hard and dry as to resist all solvents. The 
following process will be found to answer in almost every case: The spots 
to be cleaned are moistened with concentrated sulphuric acid, and powdered 
bichromate of potas is sprinkled upon the acid; the objects are then left 
standing for some hours (through the night) in a moderately warm place. 
All organic matters are by this means destroyed, with formation of sulphate 
of chromium, which may be removed by water with the residue of the acid. 
— Dingier’s Polytechnic Journal. 

Colored Flames. —Mr. A. H. Church, writing in the Chemical News, states 
that blotting paper prepared like gun cotton, by ten minutes’ immersion in 
four parts of sulphuric and five of strong fuming nitric acid, and then 
washed and dried, produces beautiful flames if soaked in chloride of stron- 
tium, or barium, or copper, or nitrate of potassa. Pellets thus prepared 
and thrown alight into the air produce a flash of intense light. The barium 
salt gives a green color, strontium a crimson, potassa a yellow, and copper 
a fine blue. 

New Material for Pencils. —Some black lead in powder mixed with India- 
rubber in solution, a small quantity of lampblack and some finely powdered 
charcoal, are incorporated together and subjected to great pressure. This 
forces out all the moisture and reduces the mixture to a hard biock, which 
may be subdivided and cut out into suitable lengths for pencils. A patent 
has been taken out for this pencil composition by R. J. Cole, of London. 

Oxalie Acid abounds in certain of our culinary vegetables; and it may 
undoubtedly be employed to a certain extent with impunity. Still, it is not 
a desirable ingredient in human sustenance; and I am in the habit, when 
the opportunity offers, of telling housekeepers to throw away the first water 
which exudes in cooking rhubarb, now so generally used; that is to say, if 
rhubarb intended for tarts or pies be first heated in an oven, after being 
peeled and otherwise made ready for cooking, before the sugar is added, it 
will be found to discharge a large quantity of a watery, and, at the same 
time, very acid juice. When this water, containing mixed acids, is rejected, 
the rhubarb forms a very much more agreeable, as well as much more 
wholesome dish. — Dr. Mc Cormack, in the London Medical Times. 

Gnanthic Acid. — It will be remembered that Liebeg and Pelouze many 
years ago announced the discovery of an ethereal essence which gave the 
rich flavor to wine, and which they styled cenanthic ether. Their researches 
were followed up by other investigators, and cenanthic acid took its place in 
chemistry. Mr. A. Fischer now announces that this acid does not exist, and 
that what has received the name is merely a composition of caprylic and 
capric acid. 

Quinic Acid in the Herb of the Whorileberry. — Messrs. Zwenger and Siebert 
(Annalen der Chimie u. Pharmacie, July, 1860) have found that several plants 
belonging to the family of Ericinex, among them the Vaccinium Myrtillus, 


224 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


whortleberry, contain a considerable proportion of quinic acid, identical with 
that obtained from Peruvian bark. 

On the Preservation of Yeast.— M. Changy, a French chemist, states that 
yeast, whether solid or liquid, if mixed with a certain quantity of animal 
or vegetable charcoal, and afterwards dried, either by a current of air or by 
a rotating apparatus, produces a powder which preserves for an unlimited 
period its fermenting properties. 

Oxidation of Organic Maiter.— Mr. G. T. Glover, writing in the Chemical 
News, recommends oxidizing organic matter in analysis for the detection of 
mineral poisons, by conveying through the mass to be examined the gas 
evolved when chlorate of potash is treated with dilute muriatic acid. He 
represents this process as avoiding the inconvenience of mixing the chlorate 
of potash with the substance itself. 

New Dye. — An Austrian is said to have discovered a carmine dye in the 
Chinese sorgho. The plant is allowed to ferment, and then treated with 
caustic soda or potash, which dissolves the coloring matter. It is then pre- 
cipitated by sulphuric acid. 

Curious Action of Silver.— Professor Boettger states that if dry oxide of 
silver is moistened with essence of cloves, the mixture takes fire and the 
metal is reduced. 

Suggestions for Removing Ink Spots. — If the ink is the common nutgall and 
iron ink, a solution of oxalic acid will remove the spot at once. Those from 
ink which contains indigo, if on paper, are first bleached with chlorine water 
and then removed by hydrochloric acid; if on linen, first with a solution of 
hydrochlorite of lime or Labarraque’s solution, and then with acid. Blue 
ink is removed by treating the spot first with some alkali, and washing it 
afterwards with some acid. 

Benzinated Magnesia for the Removal of Grease Spots.— Lumps of carbon- 
ate of magnesia (calcined magnesia will answer the same purpose) are 
saturated with benzole, and spread over the grease spot a sixth of an inch 
thick. When dry, the magnesia is simply dusted off, but the opération is 
repeated if necessary. This method of applying benzole in combination 
with the capillary action of the magnesia is said to be superior to any other 
for the removal of fresh and old spots from all kinds of wood, ivory, paper, 
parchment, silk, and cotton: for woollen it is not adapted, on account of the 
magnesia becoming fixed in the grain. 

Coal-Oil as a Preservative for Sodium and Potassium. — Coal-oil is a better 
article for preserving sodium and potassium than naphtha. In coal-oil, 
sodium keeps its lustre for months or years, while in the purest naphtha it 
loses it in a few days. — Correspondence Journal Franklin Institute. 

Action of Sulphuretted Hydrogen on Silver.—It has been shown by MM. 

Davanne and Girard that perfectly dry sulphuretted hydrogen does not act 
upon silver. Silver ledves may be suspended in a perfectly dry atmosphere 
of this gas without undergoing change. 
' Adamantine Boron. —This name is applied by Deville to anew combination 
of aluminum and boric acid, recently prepared by him, which possesses most 
remarkable properties. It is harder than the diamond, will cut and drill | 
rubies, and even the diamond itself, with more facility than the diamond 
powder. 

Gas-Lime as a Depilatory.— As is well known, the Turkish rusma owes 
its action on the hair to the persulphide of lime it contains, the arsenic pre- 
sent being only the bearer of the sulphur, A writer in the Polytechnische 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 295 


Central-Halle gives the following as the rationale of the process now in use 
by tanners with gas-lime. The depilatory action depends exclusively upon 
the persulphide of lime, and is heightened by the presence of cyanide of cal- 
cium. Pieces of hairy skin brought into a mixture of these two compounds 
were at once deprived of the hair, the destruction commencing on the ends 
and stopping at the root without acting in the least on the skin. It appears 
that one atom of sulphur combines with the substance of the hair, destroy- 
ing it, and at the same time leaving an insoluble sulphate of lime which is 
precipitated together with the decomposed hair.— Druggists’ Circular. 

Chlorined Water in Dissection Wounds.— M. Garrigon states that repeated 
experience has convinced him of the efficacy of the treatment long since 
recommended by M. Nonant, of placing the hand suffering from dissection 
wounds in chlorinated water. The application will always be found effica- 
cious, providing purulent infection have not already set in, when it will be 
useless.— Gaz. des Hép., 1859, No. 30. 

Sulphur as a Dentifrice.— Dr. C. W. Wrizht states, in an article on the above 
subject, in the Louisville Medical Gazette, that the common flowers of sulphur 
of the drug-store possesses advantages over all other substances on account 
of its antiseptic properties, its exerting no injurious action on the teeth, 
either chemical or mechanical, and its ready preparation and cheapness. The 
sublimed sulphur must be freed from any acid which it may contain by agi- 
tating it in water in which a small quantity of carbonate of soda has been 
dissolved, and then freed from the soda by repeated washing in cold water. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF STINKS. 


There is a fallacy in the almost universal opinion that, because a stink is 
unpleasant, it must necessarily be injurious to health. Yet a very small sur- 
vey of familiar facts would disclose that our likings and dislikings in the mat- 
ter of smell or taste are by no means accurate criteria of what is wholesome 
and what is noxious. Unfortunately, we like many things that are notori- 
ously injurious; and many things that are unpleasant are notoriously bene- 
ficial. Not only are these familiar truths, but a little inquiry discloses a mass 
of evidence which proves that even the odors of a too composite river or an 
ill-drained district, unpleasant as they may be, are very far from carrying 
pestilence and plague with them wherever they go. We are not going to 
assert that the question of drainage is not very important. We have no 
desire to propound the paradox that stinks are wholesome because disagree- 
able; but we call attention to the fallacy of assuming that because they are 
disagreeable they must necessarily be injurious. 

ts it a demonstrated fact that the exhalations from a foul river cause chol- 
era and fever? So far from its being demonstrated, the evidence at present 
seems decisively opposed to such a conclusion. Is it demonstrated that the 
exhalations from the sewers cause cholera and fever? 

The public, generally, has no doubt upon the subject, but an English phy- 
sician of some note, Dr. Parkin, has recently, in a published work, assumed 
the position that the evidence we possess in regard to these matters is alto- 
gether against the theory that cholera, fever, and other diseases are owing 
to the decomposition of organic matter and the use of impure water. His 
evidence is founded on experience of very various climates and latitudes,— 
the intertropical regions of the East and West, the burning sands of Arabia 
and the snow-covered steppes of Russia, as well as the more temperate regions 


* 


“ie 
P | Se 
. a’ Vv A f 
a a i 
> ss & 


226 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of Europe and America,— evidence which, if not conclusive, is at least ex- 
ceedingly interesting. 

Thus, the injuriousness of imperfect drainage is said to arise from the nox- 
ious influence of all organic matters — animal and vegetable—when in a 
state of decomposition. That putrid flesh and vegetables are generally 
unpleasant, both to taste and smell, is a fact; but are they as injurious as 
they are unpleasant? Some putrescent matters are injurious when eaten, 
although many can be, and are, eaten with impunity; and all of them are 
injurious if they enter the blood. The surprising fact that the Indians kill 
their game with poisoned arrows, yet suffer no harm from eating the flesh 
thus poisoned, is intelligible to the physiologist, who sees that the poison of 
the arrow enters the blood of the animal; but the poison of the poisoned 
flesh, which is eaten, does not enter the blood. It is on the same principle 
that we can explain why an anatomist may spend day after day over putrid 
bodies (in an atmosphere the stench of which makes a stranger sick), yet 
suffer no harm beyond what would result from sedentary confinement in any 
other room; nevertheless, let this anatomist scratch himself with the scalpel 
which he has just used, and this little wound may be his death. He could 
breathe the air laden with the products of decomposition, and, if oxygen 
were sufficiently abundant for respiration, no harm would ensue; but he 
could not admit decomposing matter into his biood without serious injury. 

_ In the above paragraph we have briefly stated what seems to us the physi- 

ological principle involved in this question. Putrid substances are poison- 
ous only in the biood; but the gaseous products of putrescenee are not 
poisonous. A stink is unpleasant, but it is not poisonous. We assume, of 
course, that the gaseous products are not too abundant to prevent respira- 
tion, otherwise the effects of imperfect respiration will ensue; but these are 
not choiera or fever. 

With this preliminary explanation, let ns now look at Dr. Parkin’s evidences. 

Majendie arranged a cask in such a way that the bottom could hold putrid 
substances, whilst animals were placed on a grating with a double bottom, 
exposed to the emanations which constantly escaped. Rabbits, guinea-pigs, 
and pigeons were left thus for a month, but did not experience any ill result. 
Dogs, on the contrary, began to lose flesh on the fourth day, and, although 
they preserved their gayety and appetite, died at the end of ten or fifteen 
days. But the dogs showed none of the symptoms of poison; — they showed 
none of the symptoms observed in dogs into whose veins putrid matters had 
been injected. Their death was obviously caused by imperfect respiration. 
Rabbits and guinea-pigs require less oxygen in a given atmosphere than 
dogs, by reason of their smaller size. But that exhalations from decaying 
matters are not injurious when respiration is unimpeded, seems evident from 
the experience of leather-dressers, knackers, butchers, and others. Mr. New- 
man informs us that the leather-dressers in Bristol are.not only healthy, but - 
more so than the rest of the neighboring poor, although, during the last part 
of the process, the stench is almost intolerable. In the tan-yards at Ber- 
mondsey there are about seven hundred workmen, all remarkably healthy. 
Again, Dr. Chisholme says that, in a manufactory near Bitton, for the pro- 
duction of muriate of ammonia and sulphate of soda, and where the distilla- 
tion of the medullary oil produces the most nauseating fetor, no fever is 
known to arise, although the neighborhood is thickly populated. Thesame 
exemption has been remarked at a manufactory near Bristol for the conver- 
sion of dead animals into a substance resembling spermaceti, and where the 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 997 


same putrid exhalations are given out. Further, slaughter-lhouses, which, 
according to theory, ought to be centres of pestilence and fever, have been 
singularly exempt from them, as was noticed during the plague and during 
the cholera. Dr. Tweedie says: ‘‘ Though every description of mechanic 
was at some period or other admitted last year into the Fever Hospital, I do 
not recollect a single instance of a butcher being sent to the establishment.” 
The perfume of the graveyard is far from agreeable, and graveyards have 
for some years been regarded as centres of pestilence and fever. When pes- 
tilence and fever are raging in a district, it is not difficult, of course, to find 
that a graveyard is somewhere close at hand; but this is extremely imperfect 
evidence of any necessary connection between the two; and it becomes still 
more suspicious when we find that at Bridgetown, Barbadoes, eight thou- 
sand bodies were buried in six weeks in a space of two acres, yet neither 
fever nor any other disease attacked the inhabitants afterwards. The same 
remark applies to nearly all the large towns in the West Indies, in conse- 
quence of the practice of burying cholera victims in one spot. In the burial- 
grounds near Seville, ten thousand bodies had been recently interred, 
when, in 1800, the French government sent a commission to inquire into the 
cause of yellow fever; and although a fetid odor was exhaled from the de- 
composing bodies, no ill result followed to the thousands of the inhabitants 
who went daily to visit the graves of their relatives and friends. And what 
shall we say to the Cemetery of the Innocents at Paris? In the course of 
thirty years, ninety thousand bodies had been buried there by one grave- 
digger, and it was calculated that more than six hundred thousand bodies 
had been buried there during the six previous centuries. In a space not 
exceeding two acres, it had been the custom to bury the bodies of the 
poor in common pits, and they were placed so close to each other as to 
be only separated by planks of six lines each. These pits were twenty 
feet wide and twenty deep, and each contained ten to fifteen hundred bodies. 
It is difficult to understand how Paris escaped from continuous attacks of 
cholera, and how the grave-digger managed to breathe this atmosphere 
during thirty Years, if grave-yard exhalations are the fatal poisons they are 
declared to be. s 
he authority of Duch&telet is invoked in a very striking case. At Mont- 
faucon, in Paris, there is one of the most extensive knacker-yards in the 
world. Thousands of horses, dogs, and cats are slaughtered there,— the 
flesh and offal, after the animals are skinned, being allowed to remain and 
putrefy for the purpose of manure. “ Every one,’ says Duchatelet, ‘ can 
examine the fetid odor produced by heaps of flesh left to putrefy for months 
in the open air, and in the heat of the sun; to which must be added the 
gases given out from mountains of skeletons not properly cleansed from the 
soft parts, and the emanations arising from a soil saturated from year to 
year with blood and animal liquids. But, if you interrogate the numerous 
workmen who belong to the establishment, they will answer that they are 
never ill, and that the effluvia which they inhale, far from injuring them, 
contributes to keep them in good health. If you examine them you will see 
they have all the appearance of the most perfect health. The robust health 
of the wife and five children of Friand were remarkable, for they had all the 
year worked and slept in a place which was actually unapproachable to the 
members of the commission, on account of the stench.”’ He also notices 
the longevity of those knackers. ‘‘ Many of them are sixty or seventy vears 
old, quite robust and active. Inquiries showed that their parents died at an 


228 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


advanced age; of the last three knackers that died, one was sixty, another 
seventy, and a third eighty-four.” 

Such are some of the facts adduced by Dr. Parkin in support of his views, 
and sanitary reform will not be aided by eluding or suppressing them.— 
Abridged from the London Review. 


RESEARCHES ON FERMENTATION. 


M. Pasteur, of Lilie, has recently been awarded a prize by the French 
Academy for his researches on fermentation, which throw much light on 
this little-understood department of chemistry. 

He shows that the germ in which fermentation originates is a living sub- 
stance, — organic, not inorganic, as some suppose; and leads to the conclusion 
that there is a remarkable analogy between fermentation and physiological 
action. In fermentation with yeast, for example, there is a perpetual 
renewal of the yeast, and, at the same time, certain curious relations appear 
between vital phenomena and mineral substances. Introduce yeast globules 
into a mixture composed of candied sugar, ammoniacal salt, and a phos- 
phate, and the ammonia will disappear by transformation into the complex 
albuminous matter of the yeast, while the phosphate gives itself up to form 
new globules. One of the elements of yeast is carbon, and this, in the 
present example, is derived from the sugar. M. Pasteur further explains 
and illustrates the process of lactic fermentation, which most chemists have 
considered as organic matter in course of alteration; but the lactic yeast is 
now shown to be really an organized substance, composed of globules, which 
are smaller than those of the yeast of beer. In the fermentation of tartaric 
acid, a further discovery was made of a surprising nature: among substances 
known to opticians are right-handed and left-handed tartrate of ammonia, 
so named from the direction in which their solutions rotate rays of light. 
They have no effect on polarized light; but, in the experiments here referred 
to, fermentation took place in the right-handed only, while the left-handed, 
similarly prepared, did not ferment, but underwent a change in which it was 
found to act with energy on polarized light. 

The analysis of yeast given by M. Pasteur, on the authority of M. Payen, 
is as follows: One hundred pints contain 62.73 of nitrogenized matter, 29.37 
of cellulose envelopes, 2.10 fatty matter, and 5.10 mineral matters. From 
this itis evident that the yeast plant can only grow where it can obtain a 
due supply of nitrogenous and mineral matter. When, by the presence of a 
salt of ammonia and phosphates, these conditions were abundantly supplied, 
M. Pasteur found the development of the yeast plant rapid and the fermen- 
tation exceedingly active; but when the growth of the plant could only take 
place through the assimilation of albuminous substances that were already 
appropriated, as in grapes, beet-roots, etc., the same processes went on, but 
with diminished velocity. 

In most chemical works it is stated that alcoholic fermentation takes place 
under two circumstances, in which yeast is added to pure solution of sugar, 
or to a solution containing albuminoid substances. In the first the yeast is 
said to act, but not to reproduce itself, as in the manufacture of beer; and 
Liebig observes, that if the fermentation was a consequence of the develop- 
ment and multiplication of the globules, they would not excite fermentation 
in pure solution of sugar, which does not offer the essential conditions of 
their vital activity. To this M. Pasteur replies, that his observations and 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 229 


experiments suggest different views, and afford a certainty that in the cases 
specified the phenomena are essentially the same, and that in boih the yeast 
globules multiply; but that, in the first case, when the fermentation is con- 
cluded, all the giobules, young and old, are deprived of their soluble 
nitrogenized matter, and that what they possessed of nitrogenous aliment 
has become insoluble and fixed in the fresh globules that have been formed. 
Yeast in this state has no action upon pure sugar, In the case of fermenta- 
tion in the presence of albuminoid matters, many globules become exhausted, 
but most of the new ones leave the liquid filled with nitrogenous and mineral 
matter, and able to live upon them in a fresh solution of sugar. 

M. Pasteur also notes the fact, that succinic acid and glycerine are products 
of fermentation: and the formation of the former substance appears to exei- 
cise an important influence on the flavor of alcoholic drinks, although the 
quantity is small. Good Bordeaux contains 7.412 grains of glycerine in a 
litre, and 1.48 grains of succinic acid. M. Pasteur remarks, “The flavor of 
this acid is peculiar, and when it is mixed with water, pieonen and glycerine, 
in the proportions obtained by fermentation, one is surprised to observe the 
extent to which the mixture resembles wine.” 

The conclusion of M. Pasteur’s paper expresses a conviction that a just 
consideration of the facts he adduces will show that alcoholic fermentation 
is an act correlative with the life and the organization of the yeast globules, 
and not with their death or putrefaction. 

Professor Van den Broek, of Utrecht, also publishes the following conclu- 
sions he has arrived at, respecting RiOSeTES of fermentation and putre- 
faction :— ‘ 

1. Fresh juice of the grape, which has never been in contact with the 
atmosphere, and has been kept absolutely free from it, suffers no change in 
a temperature of 26° to 28° C. (80° to 83° F.) after months or even years. 

2. The fermentation of grape-juice depends upon the vegetation of the 
yeast celiules, and is, therefore, absolutely dependent upon their development 
and growth. 

3. It has, as yet, not been conclusively demonstrated whether any yeast 
globules or their germ are present in the juice of ripe and perfect grapes. 

4. The impulse necessary for the development of the cellules and for the 
commencement of fermentation is not given by the oxygen, but by one cr 
more agents contained in the air, which may be destroyed by heat, or 
retained by filtering it through cotton. These agents may be wanting in a 
limited volume of atmospheric air, a case not at all rare. In this point 
fermentation is allied to other species of vegetation, such as mould, the 
formation of which is dependent upon the very same conditions. 

5. Fermentation in fresh grape-juice is induced by the introduction of 
yeast only and alone, which must not be too old; no atmospheric agents are 
required, and the yeast itself need never to have been in contact with the 
atmosphere. 

6. Fresh grape-juice, after being exposed for some minutes to the tem- 
perature of boiling water, frequently ceases to ferment in contact with 
atmospheric air. 

7. Oxygen, although it does not induce fermentation, acts decomposingly 
upon the fresh as well as the boiled juice, by being absorbed and forming 
carbonic acid; the fresh juice, and the parenchyma of the grapes suspended 
in it, assume under its influence, in a short time, a brown tint, which turas 
gradually darker. . 

20 


230 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


8. Ozone has no action upon either spirituous or lactic fermentation, or 
upon the formation of mould. 

9. The white and yolk of egg, arterial blood, gall and urine of dogs, or 
beef, in their fresh state, suffer no change after death, being moist and at 
a temperature of from 80° to 90° F., if never brought into contact with 
atmospheric air. 

10. In contact with pure oxygen, or with atmospheric air that has been 
filtered through cotton, neither of the above substances is brought to putre- 
faction. Still, the oxygen exerts a certain action, inasmuch as they all 
change their appearance, and the white and yolk of egg, as well as the gall, 
assume an acid reaction. The beginning of putrefaction, therefore, depends 
upon some one or more agent which is commonly contained in atmospheric 
air, and which is removed from it by cotton. 

11. Animal matter which is already in a state of putrefaction, or such 
which has been exposed to the atmosphere for only twenty-four hours, and, 
consequently, shows no outward signs of decomposition, induces putrefac- 
tion in all the above-named substances without the aid of the atmosphere. 

12. The microscopic examination of the above-named animal substances 
has shown that there exists no relation between their putrefaction and 
between the development and growth of vibrios and other microscopic 
organisms. 

13. In view of all this, we must look to Liebig’s chemical theory for a 
solution of the process of putrefaction, with the reservation, however, that 
the chemical ferment which induces the putrefaction acquires this property, 
not by contact with oxygen merely, but with that ingredient of the atmos- 
phere which is retained by cotton. Without this, that theory would not be 
applicable for the fermentation of grape-juice. 


ON THE PRODUCTS OF THE DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC MATTERS. 
BY M. E. KOPP. 


The dry distillation of organic matters, whether vegetable or animal, from 
the great variety of products to which it gives rise, constitutes one of the 
most. interesting operations of chemistry. The reactions to which these 
products owe their origin are very complex, and some of them have been 
but little studied, as indeed is the case with many of the substances formed. 
If the body submitted to dry distillation could be maintained during the 
operation under uniform conditions of desiccation, temperature, and pressure, 
the reactions and the products would be much more simple. If, for example, 
wood be heated very slowly in a close vessel, first to one hundred degrees 
Centigrade, then to two hundred degrees, three hundred degrees, and so on, 
there is at first disengaged almost pure water, then impure, strong acetic 
acid, and afterwards a mixture of acetone and acetate of methylene; the 
maximum of charcoal is left as residue, and the least amount of tar and gas 
is produced, the latter consisting only of carbonic acid and carbureited 
hydrogen. 

In practice, however, when wood is distilled in cylinders of iron heated 
from the outside, the heat only penetrates to the interior gradually. The 
outside layers are therefore the first decomposed; they at first lose water, 
then furnish pyroligneous acid and wood-spirit, at the same time giving off 
carbonic acid and a little carburetted hydrogen. The inner layers in turn are 
similarly decomposed; but the products as they are given off are brought 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 231 


. . 


into contact with the outer layer, already in a more advanced state of decom- 
position, and at a much higher temperature, and hence new reactions take 
place and new products are formed. Thus, the vapor of water in contact 
with red-hot charcoal is decomposed, and forms carbonic acid and hydrogen; 
a part of the carbonic acid is again decomposed by the red-hot carbon to 
form some carbonic oxide; a part of the nascent hydrogen combines with 
carbon to form various hydro-carbons; one part of the acetic acid is Gecom- 
posed by the high temperature to form acetone and carbonic acid; another 
part reacts on the wood-spirit and forms methylic acetate; a fraction of the 
wood-spirit and acetone are also decomposed, producing tarry matters, 
pyroxanthine, oxyphenic acid, dumasine, etc. To these must be added the 
influence of ceriain nitrogenized bodies, and we can understand how all these 
compounds, successively formed under the most favorable circumstances for 
acting on one another, since they are in the nascent state, and exposed to a 
high temperature, may give rise to the formation of a great variety of very 
different compounds, which will be set free either in the state of a permanent 
gas or a condensable vapor, and leave fixed carbon asa residue. The same 
takes place whether wood, coal, bituminous schists, boghead coal, asphalte, 
peat, resin, oils, or animal matters be distilled; but it is evident that the 
original composition of the material submitted to dry distillation must pow- 
erfully influence the nature and composition of the products. In those which, 
like wood, are rich in oxygen and poor in nitrogen, the pyrogenous products 
contain much acetic acid and but little ammonia, and consequently have an 
acid reaction; on the contrary, the matters containing much nitrogen and 
but little oxygen, like coal and animal matters, give rise to the formation of 
much ammonia, and the products have an alkaline reaction. 

The following table exhibits the great variety of products which are 
obtainable from the ordinary coal-tar of gas-works, by distillation and recti- 
fication : — 


Table of the Products obtained by the Distillation and Rectification of Coal-Tar. 


| Liquid Products. 


Solid Products. Gaseous Products. 
Acids. Neutral. Bases. 
Carbon. Rosolic. Water. Ammonia. Hydrogen. 
Napthaline. Brunolic. Essence of tar. |Methylamine. |Carburetted 
Paranapthaline |Phenic, or Light oil of tar.|Ethylamine. hy drogen. 
or Anthrace-|Phenol. Heavy oil oftar.| Aniline. Bicarburetted 
ine. Acetic. Benzole. Quivoline. hydrogen. 
Paraffine. Butyric. Toluole. Picoline. Various hydro- 
Chrysene. Cumole. Toluidine. carbides. 
Pyrene. Cy mole. Lutidine. Carbonic oxide. 
Propyle. Cumidine. Sulphide of car- 
Butyle. Pyrrhol. bon. 
Amyle. Petinine. Carbonic acid. 
Caproyle. Hydrosulphuric 
Hexylene. acid. 
Heptylene. Hydrocyanic 
acid... = 


ON THE VALUE OF COAL-TAR AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


It is interesting, since coal-tar has acquired so important a position in the 
arts, to trace how its various products successively rise in value. The prices 
in Paris are given by M. Parisel in a recent paper as follows : — 


Jon ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Games. : - . dc. perlb. | Ordinary aniline, $8,27 a $4,90 per Ib. 
3 6t 
4 


Coal-tar, : = ~ Liquid aniline violet, 28a4lc. C 
Heavy coal-oil, . . 24a383 * ee Carmine aniline 

Light coal-oil, . - 634102 * ee violet, . - 82c. a $1.92 Me 
BRenzole, . - « 103 a 138 “ “ Pure aniline violet, 

Crude nitro-benzole, 57a6l © f in powder, $245 a $326.88 ‘ 2 


Rectified nitro-benzole, 82a96 “ “ 


The last is equal to the price of gold. And so, says M. Parisel, from coal, 
carried to its tenth power, we have gold; the diamond is to come. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF COAL-TAR AS A DISINFECTANT. 


The use of a mixture of coal-tar and plaster-of-paris for purposes of disin- 
fection and for dressing wounds, as proposed by Corne and Demeaux,! has 
recently been reported upon in the French Academy by a committee — Chey- 
reul, J. Cloquet, and Veilpeau— to which the subject was referred in July, 
1859. 

In numerous experiments, made at the Hospital de la Charilé, the mixed 
coal-tar and plaster of Corne was employed, both in the state of powder and 
as a poultice made by mixing it with oil. When applied as a thick layer, 
three or four times a day, upon putrid, gangrenous, and sanious wounds, the 
powder destroyed their odor, without giving rise to any special pain. Upon 
indolent sores, however, or upon recent burns, the contact of the powder 
produced considerable smarting upon some patients, though well borne by 
others. Wounds of the first class were often found to be cleaned as well as 
disinfected; while those of the second class generally acquired a dirty, pale- 
gray tint, their cicatrization being hindered. 

The poultices were found to be more advantageous than the powder in the 
treatment of cavernous wounds, purulent or fetid, and sinuous foci, open 
suppurating abscesses, anthracoidal suppurations, etc. 

Applied directly to the sore, the poultices destroyed the putrid odors, 
allayed the inflammation without augmenting the pain, leaving beneath them 
a healthier pus, and the surfaces in better condition. In a word, the mixed 
coal-tar and plaster, when properly applied, disinfects wounds and putrid 
suppurations. As for the absorbent and detergent qualities which its inventors 
also claim for it, these are less clearly evident. 

The powder absorbs better than the poultices; the latter, it is true, take 
up a portion of the morbid exudations, but unless the dressing is carefully 
renewed five or six times a day, pus will nevertheless collect beneath it. 
From this it foliows, that after having been somewhat cleaned the wound 
ceases at the end of a few days to clean itself, or to heal more rapidly than it 
would with the usual topical applications. 

It is in the dissecting-room, upon organic matter in a state of putrefaction, 
that the mixed coal-tar and plaster is all-powerful. The most infectious 
masses, when imbued with the powder, or simply rolled about in it, lose at 
once their disagreeable odor. According to Velpeau, his autopsy room was 
as approachable towards the close of last summer as it had formerly been 
repulsive. It was freed fre n flies and other insects, as well as from putrid 
odors. 

. Although it would have been out of the province of the committee to 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1860, pp. 268-69. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 235 


experiment upon the application of this mixture in disinfecting filth upon 
the great scale, they have, nevertheless, proved that it can be advantageously 
used in hospitals for deodorizing urine or fecal matters. 

The following inconveniences to which the use of the mixture in surgery 
would give rise, are enumerated : — 

It not only soils the clothes of the patient, but hardens them, and causes 
them to weigh more heavily upon or about the wound; it imparts to the 
bandages with which the poultices are covered a very tenacious rusty or 
yellow color; it must be frequently renewed ; and although it destroys putrid 
smells, it retains a bituminous odor by no means agreeable to many persons. 

These inconveniences are of comparatively slight importance, it is true, 
and may possibly admit of being remedied. 

Of the other disinfectants submitted to the committee, several were only 
modifications of that of Corne and Demeaux. Vegetable tar, as shown by 
Renault, may be substituted for coal-tar. With regard to the assertions of 
some practitioners, that common earth, talc, flour, or other vegetable and 
mineral powders, —even poudrette,— when mixed with coal-tar furnish a 
more convenient and less costly disinfectant than that prepared with plaster, 
the experiments of the committee have proved, that while coal-tar, mixed 
with common earth, well dried, or with sand, is equally, or perhaps much 
more, efficacious for disinfecting fecal matter as when mixed with plaster; 
that while comparative experiments made from this point of view upon sul- 
phate of lime, clay, charcoal, linseed-meal, and earth have resulted in favor 
of the latter, the same is by no means true in surgery. When applied to 
wounds or infectious suppurations these different mixtures were only par- 
tially successful, having proved to be less efficacious than the mixed plaster 
and coal-tar. 

Although the modifications of Corne and Demeaux’s process have not 
been particularly felicitous thus far, they have nevertheless served to confirm 
the fact that in reality it is the coal-tar which acts the principal part as disin- 
fectant in these various mixtures.! . 


1 The inefficiency of sulphate of lime as a general disinfecting agent, when used 
by itself, may be readily demonstrated by the following experiment, which is of 
interest in view of the fact that a belief in the utility of gypsum as a deodorizer 
appears to be widely spread among recent writers. For that matter, we are told 
by Paulet (Comptes Rendus, xlix., 199) that during the last twenty-five years more 
than fifty authors of processes of disinfection have announced, each as he believed 
for the first time, the use of plaster as a means of disinfection. 

If a mixture of about equal volumes of powdered gypsum and fresh urine be 
introduced into a small phial, the mixture placed in a warm room and thoroughly 
shaken several times a day until the urine has become putrid, it will be observed 
that an exceedingly disagreeable odor will be developed, differing from ordinary 
stale urine, inasmuch as it is unalloyed with the odor of ammonia. For the com- 
plete success of this experiment, it is important that a large excess of sulphate of 
lime should be present, and that the mixture should be frequently agitated, else 
the whole of the carbonate of ammonia will not be decomposed, and will tend to 
mitigate the fetor of the special odor of the putrid urine. So far from disinfecting, 
in this case the sulphate of lime really destroys a deodorizing, or at least a masking 
agent, ammonia; leaving free — purified as it were, and unadulterated — an odor, 
the peculiar offensiveness of which is remarkable. Sulphate of iron being substi- 
tuted for gypsum in this experiment, afforded a somewhat similar result, although 
the odor obtained was a trifle less insufferable than that of the experiments with 
sulphate of lime. It should be here mentioned that the odors in question were in 
20* 


234 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Among the numerous other substances proposed as disinfectants, or for 
dressing wounds, the following have not afforded satisfactory results :— 

Chlorate of Potash, mixed with clay or kaolin (for example, ten parts of 
chlorate to ninety parts of white clay or fine sand), which was proposed as 
an absolute disinfectant, neither disinfected nor absorbed the pus of fetid 
wounds. The mixture would be in any case much more costly than coal-tar 
and plaster, and certainly less efficacious. 

Whites of Eggs, mixed with chalk and applied to wounds previously oiled, 
succeeded no better than simple cerate. 

Powdered Sugar, when employed in layers upon ulcers, forms crusts, 
beneath which the suppurations accumulate, and hinder the process of healing. 

The members of another group of disinfectants are worthy, in various 
degrees, of consideration. 

Among these, charcoal appears in the front rank. Surgeons have long 
regarded it as one of the best antiseptics known. Confined between pieces 
of linen, according to the process of Malapert and Pichot, it is more readily 
applied than when used as powder directly upon wounds; but the mixture of 
coal-tar and plaster, which disinfects still better, and is more cleanly, is sus- 
cepiibie of a simpler and a more general application. 

Coke of Boghead Coal, in powder, as proposed by Moride,}! like carbon, 
when employed, comparatively with coal-tar and plaster, alternately upon the 
same patients, proved to be less efficacious, less convenient, and more dis- 
azreeable than the latter. 

* Mixed Plaster and Charcoal, proposed by Herpin of Metz, irritates the 
wounds, disinfects badly, and soils everything it touches. 

The following substances have long ago acquired a place, each in its own 
way, in the class of disinfectants. 

Tincture of Iodine has been employed as an antiseptic by hospital surgeons 
since 1823. By modifying the surfaces to which it is applied, it usually 
improves the appearance of the pus, lessens its acridity, and is, to a certain 
extent, antagonistic to putrid“‘infections. It disinfects, however, oniy incom- 
pletely, causes severe pain when applied to open wounds, and would be 


no instance contaminated with sulphuretted hydrogen — as was ascertained by 
careful trials. — #. H. Sforer. 

1 In view of the claim of Moride (Comptes Rendus, xlix., 242), as well as from its 
general interest, the following extract from a report made to the British Secretary 
of War by Lewis Thompson (London Journal of Gas Lighting, Water Supply, and 
Sanitary Improvement, 1856, v. 11), may here be cited : — 

Mr. Thompson states that he has instituted a set of experiments having a purely 
money basis as theirexponent. The articles enumerated were each employed until 
they practically deodorized one uniform quantity of the same mass of putrid sew- 
age, and the money value of the proportions thus used was deduced either from a 
broker's price-list, or, where this failed to give the requisite information, by special 
inquiry from a wholesale dealer. The amount of sewage operated upon in each 
experiment was half a gallon taken from a single tank which had been recently 
filled out of a large and very offensive ditch or open sewer. Two indications of the 
progress of the disinfection were had recourse to in these experiments: one with 
paper dipped in sugar of lead, which gradually ceased to become brown as the 
deodorizing agent was added in successive portions; the other had reference to the 
discontinuance of any offensive smell; and the attainment of this last condition 
was regarded as the termination of each experiment. 

By this means he was enabled to draw up the subjoined table, which shows at a 
glance the comparative cost of executing the same amount of deodorizing work 


. CHEMICAL SCIENCE. : 235 


expensive if used on a large scale; finally, the odor of iodine is neither 
agreeable nor unattended by inconveniences. 

Perchloride of Iron has been used for some twelve years in hospitals as an 
antiseptic, and as a means of modifying certain wounds, and putrid or san- 
guineous foci. Without diffusing the disagreeable odor of tincture of iodine, 
it has, like the latter, the fault of disinfecting badly, of causing much pain, 
and of acting violently upon the diseased tissues, besides injuring the cloths 
which are soaked in it, even more than is the case with the coal-tar and plaster. 

Both iodine and the salt of iron just mentioned are in fact agents of 
another order; they have rendered, and do still render important services. 
They are certainly well worth preserving, but should not be compared with 
the mixture of coal-tar and plaster. 

Nitrate of Lead, Creosote, and o:her substances which have been proposed 
at one time or another, have not realized the expectations of their inventors ; 
their price has been too great, their employment required too much care, or 
their action has not been sufficiently certain, that they could be advanta- 
geously used in practice. There is, nevertheless, one of these which deserves 
special mention, viz., chlorine. Ever since Guyton Morveau demonstrated 
the true action of muriatic acid upon putrefying animal matters, the efficacy 
of chlorine has been tested in almost innumerable ways. Solutions of chlo- 
rine, of “‘ chloride of soda,” and of ‘‘ chloride of lime,” have rendered signal 
services to medicine and in the cause of public health, especially since Labar- 
raque, some thirty years since, indicated an improved method of employing 
them. But the odor of chlorine, disagreeable in itself, is neither easily borne 
nor devoid of inconveniences. Wounds, moreover, hardly accommodate 
themselves to it any better than the sense of smell, whenever somewhat large 
doses of it are required. 

In conclusion, the committee say: “In order to obtain from the process of 


with each agent, on the supposition that Boghead charcoal can be had at the rate 
of $3.00 [= 12s.] per ton. 


Table showing the Cost of Purifying one uniform Quality of Feculent Sewage by the 
several articles mentioned. 


Boghead charcoal (coke), 2 : 4 - 3 A - $3.00 
Nitric acid, : - 5 : - - - - : 8 50 
Black oxide of Wee iat : : - “ : : 9.25 
Chloride of lime, = : : : C : = ¢ - 10.75 
Peat charcoal, . : - - - : ° : : : 11.00 
Subciloride of iron preyeriest)s este Se ee o 2S 
Animaicharcoal, : : - : : é : 16.75 
Chloride of manganese (imperfeet) : : - . - 17.50 
Bichloride of mercury, . - : : A 18.00 
Impure chloride of zine in damp — deat : - : 26.00 
Chloride of zine in solution, as patented by Sir Wm. Burnett, 37.00 
Sulphate of copper, . : ; - - : : - . 389.00 


The sulphates of zinc, iron, and alumina; common gypsum; sulphuric, sulphur- 
ous, and muriatic acids; peroxide of iron, highly dried clay, litharge, and sawdust, 
were found imperfect even when very large quantities were employed. 

Arsenious acid and creosote, on the contrary, were very active; but the danger 
of a subsequent evolution of arseniuretted hydrogen in the first case, and the diffi- 
culty of diffusing an oily fluid like creosote in the second, seemed to interdict the 
use of these substances. — F. H. Storer. 


236 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Corne and Demeaux its proper effect, certain indispensable precautions must 
be followed. It is evident, from having neglected some of these precautions, 
that different experimenters have been led to believe that the method is use- 
less. Fine moulding plaster, and not the common article, should be employed. 
The coal-iar, which is mixed with it in the proportion of two to four paris to 
a hundred, by triturating or grinding, ought to impart to it a gray tint, with- 
out destroying its dry, pulverulent condition. Objects to be disinfected 
should be rolled in this powder until each point upon their surfaces has been 
brought in contact with it. Gangrenous or puirid sores should be covered 
with thick layers of it, by handfuls, several times per day. If one is treating 
pus, blood, dejections, or the like, enouzh of the powder shouid be added to 
form a paste of the mass, taking care to replace the first layer of powder by 
another as soon as it no longer absorbs any more. — Comptes Rendus, et Silli- 
man’s Journal. 


NEW DISINFECTANT. 


I’ Invention (Paris) states that the following composition has the property 
of instantaneously disinfecting putrefying maiter, privy vaults, ete. It is 
prepared as follows: Sulphate of iron and sulphate of alumina are dissolved 
in water, the solution being of a strenzth of fifty-five dezrees. This is 
evaporated for eight or ten hours, in order to obtain a hard and compact 
cake, which may be transporied in sacks to great distances. During the 
evaporation, eight or ten per cent of lime is mixed with the compound, which 
is finally run into forms, and dried perfectly in the air. After it is posiiively 
ascertained that it contains no moisture, it is reduced to powder, more or 
less fine, and delivered to the consumer, who may keep it any lengih of time 
either in powder or in solution. This disinfectant has no odor, and it may 
be employed for a great number of hygienic and domestic purposes. 


THE ANTISEPTIC QUALITY OF SUGAR. 


It is well known that fruits, flesh, etc., may be indefinitely preserved in a 
syrup of sugar, in honey, or in glycerine. It has been observed that the life 
of animals which breathe in water is Incompatible with the presence therein 
of even an inconsiderable quantity of sugar. Mondi offers as an explanation 
the osmatic or diffusive tendency of these bodies, which prevents the life and 
propagation of animalculz, or ferment cells, as these organisms swell and 
even burst in syrupy solutions. The high density of a liquid is accordingly 
of chief imporiance in determining its antiseptic properties. 


ON THE PRODUCTS OF PUTREFACTION.—BY F. GRACE CALVERT. 


Some eighteen months ago, my friend, Mr. J. A. Ransome, surgeon to the 
Royal Infirmary, Manchester, induced me to make some researches with the 
view of ascertaining the nature of the products given off from putrid wounds, 
and more especially in the hope of throwing some light upon the contagion 
known as hospital gangrene. I fitted up some apparatus to condense the 
noxious products from such wounds, but the quantity obtained was so small 
that it was necessary for me to acquire a more general knowledge of the 
various substances produced during the putrefaction of animal matter, before 
I could determine the nature of the products from sloughing wounds. I 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 237 


therefore began a series of experiments, the general results of which I now 
wish to lay before the society. 

Into each of a number of small barrels twenty pounds of meat and fish 
were introduced; and, to prevent the clotting together of the mass, it was 
mixed layer by layer with pumice-stone. The top of each barrel was perfo- 
rated in two places, one hole being for the purpose of admitting air, whilst 
through the other a tube was passed which reached to the bottom of the 
barrel. This tube was put in connection with two bottles containing chloride 
of platinum, and these in their turn connected with an aspirator. By this 
arrangement air was made to circulate through the casks so as to become 
charged with the products of putrefaction, and to convey them to the pla- 
tinum salt. A yellow amorphous precipitate soon appeared, which was 
collected, washed with water and alcohol, and dried. This precipitate was 
found to contain C, H, and N; but, what is highly remarkable, sutphur and 
phosphorus enter into its composition. 

I satisfied myself during these researches, which have lasted more than 
twelve months, that no sulphuretted nor phosphuretted hydrogen was given 
off; and my researches, as far as they have proceeded, tend to prove that 
the noxious vapors given off during putrefaction contain the N, 8, and Ph of 
the animal substance, and that these elements are not liberated in the simple 
form of ammonia and sulphuretted and phosphuretied hydrogen. I also 
remarked during this investigation that as putrefaction proceeds, different 
volatile bodies are given off. 

Before concluding, I may add, that when the platinum salts are heated in 
small test tubes they give off vapors, some acid and some alkaline, possess- 
ing a most obnoxious and sickening odor, very like the odors of putrefaction; 
and that at the same time a white crystalline sublimate, which is not chloride 
of ammonium, is formed. 

As I foresee that these researches will occupy several years, I have deemed 
it my duty in the mean time to lay the above facts before the society. — Pro- 
ceedings of the Royal Society. 


THE “COCOA-NUT PEARL.” , 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. C. F. 
Winslow exhibited to the society a specimen of the so-called ‘‘cocoa-nut 
pearl,” set in a ring belonging to F. T. Bush, Esq., of Boston. He stated 
that it came from Singapore; that very few specimens are found; and that 
they are highly esteemed by the rajahs, and worn as costly gems. Mr. Bush, 
during a residence of some years in the East, saw but one other, and that 
was as large as the egg of a Canary bird; but he heard of others as large as 
acherry. Their method of growth was unknown, but they are said to be 
found free in the cavity of the cocoa nut. The specimen having been pre- 
sented to the society for examination, Dr. John Bacon, at a subsequent 
meeting, reported on it, as follows :— 

The peculiar characters of this gem are most readily described by compar- 
json with those of animal pearls, which it resembles in many respects. It is 
about one quarter of an inch in diameter, and of a spherical shape. Its sur- 
face, evidently a natural one, is smooth, and of a milk-white color, with little 
lustre. On close examination, the surface appears mottled, and faint undu- 
Jated markings are seen within. In hardness it much exceeds true pearls, 
equalling feldspar, or the averaze hardness of opal. The hardness of pearis 


238 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


varies to some extent. Several specimens of different species which I had 
an opportunity to test ranged between calcite and fluor-spar; none were so 
hard as fluor. 

Chemical Composition. — The cocoa-nut pearl consists of carbonate of lime, 
with a very small proportion of organic matter; so little that it does not 
blacken nor evolve any odor before the blowpipe. When the carbonate of 
lime is removed by the slow aciion of very dilute acids, a transparent sub- 
stance remains, of great tenuity, showing no structure under the microscope, 
and incapable of preserving its form. The chemical reactions obtained with 
it indicate that the organic substance is an albuminous body, and not cellu- 
lose, the basis of vegetable tissues in general. Since albuminous substances 
occur in plants as well as in the animal kingdom, we cannot find, however, that 
it is of animal origin. True pearls consist of carbonate of lime, with a con- 
siderable amount of albuminous animal matter. When decalcified by dilute 
acids, the organic residue retains the form and structure of the pearl; and in 
the nacreous pearls, the characteristic iridescence also. 

Microscopical Characters. — Thin sections examined under the microscope 
show that the cocoa-nut pearl is composed of numerous regularly concentric 
lamine, adhering pretty firmly together. These layers form groups differing 
slightly in tint, and near the exterior are often exceedingly thin. The centre 
is occupied by a semi-transparent mass resembling the surrounding layers. 
No foreign nucleus was found. The general mass is made up of radiating 
bands of crystalline fibres, inclined at different angles in contiguous bands. 
Tn the outer layers, the crystalline structure becomes strongly marked with 
rhombohedral cleavage. Probably the great hardness of this pearl depends 
upon the peculiar crystalline arrangement, with a little organic matter bind- 
ing the whole firmly together. 

Pearls exhibit two principal varieties of microscopic structure. The true 
or nacreous pearl is formed of concentric laminz of nacre, and shows a finely 
furrowed surface, and no radiating lines within. The markings of the 
nacreous membrane, by which iridescence is produced, are faintly visible in 
the sections as very fine undulated and dotted lines. In the second variety of 
pearl, a prismatic cellular structure occurs. These pearls exhibit well-marked 
radiating lines, as well as concentric layers. In many specimens of pearl, 
both varieties of structure are found. The cocoa-nut pearl presents a general 
resemblance in microscopic characters to the second variety, but differs essen- 
tially in the details of structure, as is evident from the sections now exhibited 
of pearls from pearl oysters and from fresh-water clams,—showing the 
nacreous and prismatic varieties, and combinations of both. 

I cannot find that any species of pearl or other concretion resembling this 
has been described. Nor could I learn from our best botanical authorities 
that any concretion is known to occur in the cocoa nut. The milk of this 
nut contains, according to the reported analyses, a little phosphate and 
malate of lime, but no carbonate; nor is the carbonate found in any part of 
the nut. Possibly an analysis of the immature nut might give a different 
result. The only concretions of vegetable origin which approach this in 
composition and structure are the cystolithes found in the leaves of Urti- 
cacez, and some other families of plants. These are minute bodies, showing 
concentric lamination. But they consist of a matrix of successive layers of 
cellulose, upon which crystalline masses of carbonate of lime are deposited 
in a kind of efflorescence; a wholly different mode of formation. 

In the animal kingdom, several kinds of concretions besides pearls bear 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 239 


more or less resemblance to this body in composition and structure; espe- 
cially the concretions of carbonate of lime formed in the bladders of herbivo- 
rous animals, in which more or less animal matter is always combined with 
the salt of lime. Numerous concentric layers and a radiated crystalline 
structure are frequently visible. The organic matter is usually in small 
proportion, though often sufficient to preserve the original form and structure 
when the carbonate of lime is removed by acids; occasionally there is more 
animal matter than in true pearls. 

It is to be regretted that the origin of the cocoa-nut pearl is not certainly 
known, since neither the chemical nor microscopic characters are sufficient 
to point out its source and mode of formation. Were the statement of its 
origin perfectly reliable, it might be regarded as the product of a diseased 
condition of the nut. The concentric lamination might seem to require a 
longer time than the rapid growth of the cocoa nut would admit of; but in 
the case of animal calculi of similar chemical composition, and of such as 
can be made artificially, these layers, whether resulting from successive 
depositions or from a process of segregation, may be rapidly formed. A 
few wecks, and sometimes cnly a few hours, are sufficient for the production 
of numerous Jamine. 


CELLULOSE DIGESTED BY SHEEP. 


The researches of several German chemists have proved that the cellulose 
of plants is by no means so indigestible a substance as was at one time sup- 
posed; but that, on the contrary, it is digested in considerable quantities, by 
the ruminants at least, especially when a portion of the food of the animal 
consists of some substance rich in oil. In order to ascertain to what extent 
the digestibility of cellulose may depend upon its state of aggregation, 
Sussdorf and A. Steeckhardt have undertaken a series of experiments, of 
which only a very brief abstract can be here given. From their results it is 
evident, that even the most compact kinds of cellulose can be in a great 
measure digested by sheep. The experiments, commenced in July, 1859, 
were upon two wethers, respectively five and six years old. These were fed: 
first, upon hay alone; second, upon hay and rye straw; third, hay and pop- 
lar-wood sawdust which had been exhausted with lye—in order that the sheep 
should eat the sawdust, it was found necessary to add to it some rye-bran and 
asmall quantity of salt; fourth, hay and sawdust from pine wood mixed with 
bran and salt; fifth, hay, spruce sawdust, bran and salt; sixth, hay, paper- 
makers’ pulp from linen rags and bran. After several unsuccessful attempts to 
induce the sheep to partake of the pulp when mixed with dry fodder, it was 
at last given to them in a sort of paste or pap, prepared by mixing bran with 
water. The experiments were continued until November, with the exception 
of a short intermission during which the animals were put to pasture, in order 
that they might recover from the injurious effects — probably due to the 
resinous matters of the spruce-wood —of the fifth series of experiments. 
The animals, as well as their food, drink and excrements, were weighed every 
day. The amount of cellulose in the excrements was also daily determined 
by analysis, the composition of the food ingested having been previously 
ascertained. It appeared that where the animals were fed, first, with hay 
(thirty-five pounds per week), sixty to seventy per cent of the cellulose con- 
tained therein was digested, 7. e., it did not appear as such in the solid excre- 
ments. In this experiment the animals gained seven anda half pounds in 


240 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


eighteen days. Second, with hay fourteen pounds, and straw seven pounds 
(per week), forty to fifty per cent of the cellulose of the straw was digested; 
the animals having lost two and a half pounds in eleven days. Third, with 
hay ten and a half pounds, poplar sawdust five and a quarter pounds, bran 
seven pounds (per week), forty-five to fifty per cent of the cellulose of the 
poplar-wood was digested; the animals having gained two and a haif 
pounds in thirteen days. Fourth, with hay ten and a half pounds, pine-wood 
sawdust seven pounds, bran ten and a half pounds (per week), thirty to forty 
per cent of the cellulose of the pine-wood was digested; the animals having 
gained ten pounds in twenty-four days. Fifth, with hay nine and a half 
pounds, paper-makers’ pulp seven pounds, bran fourteen pounds (per week), 
eighty per cent of the cellulose of the paper pulp was digested; the animals 
having gained seven pounds in as many days. 

These experiments are to be continued, and more particularly with a view 
of ascertaining whether any nourishing effect is to be attributed to the celiu- 
lose.— Steckhardt’s Chemischer Ackersman, 1860, No. 1, p. 51. 


CHITINE. 


M. Peligot, describing some investigations on the chemistry of the skin of 
the silk-worm in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, states the discovery of 
cellulose in the chitine which it contains. He obtained similar results from 
the chitine of the lobster, and thinks it probable that chitine is never a single 
substance, but a mixture of two substances, one non-nitrogenous cellulose 
and the other nitrogenous, belonging to the class of albumenoid or protein 
compounds. He says that a mixture of two parts of protein and one of cel- 
lulose would have the composition which he considers to belong to the skin 
of silk-worms. Cellulose is the proximate principle of which the vegetable 
cell membranes of plants is composed, and, according to the Micrographic 
Dictionary, is found in the mantle of the Tunicata. Should M. Peligot’s 
views be found correct, the relations between the animal and vegetable king- 
doms will appear stronger, as chitine is the horny substance which gives 
firmness to the shells and skins of the crustaceans, spiders, and insects. M. 
Peligot thus sums up the philosophy of his researches: ‘‘ The exterior envelop 
of animals and plants, whether it be more or less resisting, is composed 
of two substances, cellulose and protein,— cellulose, which exists in vegeta- 
bles and the inferior animals; cellulose and protein, which exist in animals 
of a higher organization; and of protein alone, which forms the tissues of 
the vertebrate class.” 


ON THE PRESENCE OF ARSENIC IN PLANTS USED FOR FOOD. 


It will be recollected that Professor Davy, of Dublin, last year reported the 
results of some experiments which went to show that some plants might with 
impunity be watered even with a saturated aqueous solution of arsenious 
acid; that the plants took up this arsenic and accumulated it in their tissues, 
to such an extent that traces of this metal were discoverable in the bodies of 
animals fed upon vegetables so treated. These astonishing results naturally 
excited inquiry. They have now been contradicted in a late number of the 
Pharmaceutical Journal, by Mr. Ogston, an analytical and agricultural chem- 
ist, formerly a pupil of Professor Graham. Mr. Oxgston finds that, on watering 
the ground around the reots of some vigorous cabbage-plants, some months 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 241 


old, with a saturated solution of arsenious acids, in every trial, after two 
doses at intervals of three days, the plants died within the week. The same 
occurred with Scotch kale, the only other plant subjected to the experiment. 
On testing the dead plants arsenic was detected only in the portion of the 
stem close to the roots, and which showed in its darkened color the marks of 
disease. In no case was any of the poison found in the leaves, or in the 
stem at more than five inches above the ground. Professor Davy also 
startled the English agriculturists and medical jurists by calling attention to 
the fact that arsenic exists in the commercial superphosphate of lime, at least 
in certain kinds, coming from the iron-pyrites used in the manufacture of the 
sulphuric acid employed in the production of the superphosphate, which 
arsenic, if plants may accumulate it in their tissues, would be conveyed to 
the flesh of animals fed with turnips manured with such superphosphate, 
and so conveyed to the human system,—if not in quantity sufficient to poi- 
son, yet enough to account for the presence of arsenic in cases of death from 
supposed poisoning. Mr. Ogston now considers the question as to how much 
arsenic an agricultural crop (say of turnips) can obtain from an ordinary 
dressing of the superphosphate so prepared. ‘‘Take a very bad sample of 
pyrites said to contain .30 per cent of arsenic, and consider, as is the case, that 
in the manufacture of oil of vitriol one-half of this is stopped by condensa- 
tion in the flues; .15 per cent will remain in relation to the pyrites, or about 
.10 in relation to the manufactured oil of vitriol. Now, suppose the super- 
phosphate made from this acid to contain twenty per cent. of it as a constfit- 
uent, and that three hundredweight are used as a dressing per acre, there will 
be added to this acre .07 of a pound of arsenic, and this is to be distributed 
among from twenty to twenty-five tons of roots, giving a percentage infin- 
itely small, and in my opinion relieving us from the necessity of the smallest 
anxiety on the subject. 


ON FERMENTED BREAD. 


It is well known to our readers that, some two years ago, a new plan of 
preparing bread was devised by Dr. Dauglesh, of Scotiand ;! in which, in the 
place of generating carbonic acid within the substance of the dough by fer- 
mentation, water charged with carbonic acid (common “ soda water’) was 
mixed under pressure with the flour, effecting thereby a raising of the bread 
by mechanical means, imparting to it a most perfect vesicular structure, 
and leaving the constituents of the flour wholly unchanged. An objection 
having, however, been made by some medical authorities to the process 
(which has been experimentally introduced in Great Britain), that the con- 
stituents of flour, especially the starch, are not fit for human food until they 
have been subjected to fermentative action, Dr. Dauglesh, in a late number 
of the London Medical Times and Gazette, combats the objection in the follow- 
ing article, which our readers will find replete with valuable and interesting 
information. He says:— 

In order to dispose of the assertion that starch requires to be prepared by 
the fermentive changes to render it fit for human food, it is but necessary to 
remark, that the proportion which the inhabitants of the earth who thus 
prepare their starchy food bear to those who do not is quite insignificant. 
Indeed, it would appear that the practice of fermenting the flour or meal of 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1859, p. 275. 
21 


242 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the cereal grains is followed chiefly by those nations who use a mixed animal 
and vegetable diet, while those who are fed wholly on the products of the 
vegetable kingdom reject the process of fermentation entirely. Thus, the 
millions of India and China, who feed chiefly on rice, take it, for the most 
part, simply boiled; and that large portion of the human race who feed on 
maize, prepare it in many ways, but they never ferment it. The same is 
true with the potato-eater of Ireland, and the oatmeal-eater of Scotland. 
Nor do we find that even wheat is always subjected to fermentation; but the 
peculiar physical properties of this grain appear to have tasked man’s inge- 
nuity more than any other, to devise methods of preparing from it food 
which shall be both palatable and digestible. In the less civilized states, a 
favorite mode of dressing wheat grain has been, by first roasting and then 
grinding it. On the borders of the Mediterranean it is prepared in the form 
of maccaroni and vermicelli, while in the East it is made into hard thin 
cakes for the more delicate, and for the hard-working and robust into 
thicker and more dense masses of baked flour and water. Even in our own 
nurseries, wheaten flour is baked before it is prepared with milk for infants’ 
food. The necessity of subjecting wheaten grain to these manipulations 
arises from its richness in gluten, and from the peculiar properties of that 
gluten. If afew wheaten grains are taken whole and thoroughly masticated, 
the starchy portion will be easily separated, mixed with the saliva, and swal- 
lowed, whilst nearly the whole of the gluten will remain in the mouth, in the 
form of a tough, tenacious pellet, on which scarcely any impression can be 
made. A similar state of things will follow the mastication of flour. In this 
condition, the gluten is extremely indigestible, since it cannot be penetrated 
by the digestive solvents, and they can only act upon its small external sur- 
face; hence the necessity to prepare food from wheat in such a manner as 
shall counteract this tendency to cohere and form tenacious masses. This 
is the object of baking the grain and flour as before mentioned, of making it 
into maccaroni, and of raising it into soft, spongy bread; by which latter 
means the gluten assumes a form somewhat analogous to the texture of the 
lungs, so that an enormous surface is secured for the action of the digestive 
juices; and this, I believe, is the sole object to be sought in the preparation 
of bread from wheaten flour. 

Wheat is said to be the type of adult human food. It supplies, in just 
proportions, every element essential to the perfect nutrition of the human 
organism. And yet, in practice, we find that the food which we prepare 
from it, and furnish to the inhabitants of our large towns and cities, is quite 
incapable alone of sustaining the health and strength of any individual. 
This is the more remarkable, since in Scotland we find that the food prepared 
from the oat, a grain possessing the same elements of nutrition as wheat, 
though in a coarser form, furnishes almost the exclusive diet of a very large 
number of the hardiest and finest portion of the population. 

In the large towns of France wheaten bread certainly forms a very large 
proportion of the diet of the laboring classes, but not so large as oatmeal 
does in Scotland. And yet it has been remarked by contractors for public 
works on the continent, that the chief reason why the Englishman is capable 
of accomplishing double the work of a Frenchman is, that the one consumes 
a very large proportion of meat, while the diet of the other is chiefly bread. 
In Scotland, however, the laboring man is capable of sustaining immense 
fatigue upon the nourishment afforded by oatmeal porridge. 

The deficiency in wheaten bread in affording the nourishment due to the 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 243 


constituents of the grain, is to be attributed solely to the mode of preparing 
the flour, and the process followed for making that flour into porous bread. 

The great object sought after, both by the miller and the baker, is the pro- 
duction of a white and light loaf. Experience has taught the miller that the 
flour which makes the whitest loaf is obtained from the centre of the grain; 
but that the flour which is the most economical, and contains the largest 
portion of sound gluten, is that which is obtained from the external portion 
of the grain. But while he endeavors to secure both these portions for his 
flour, he takes the greatest care to avoid, as much as possible, by fine dress- 
ing, etc., the mixture with them of any part of the true external coat which 
forms the bran, knowing that it will cause a most serious deficiency in the 
color of the bread after fermentation. 

It is generally supposed that the dark color of brown bread —that is, of 
bread made from the whole wheaten meal—is attributable to the colored 
particles of the husk or outer covering of the grain. But such is not really 
the case. The colored particles of the bran are of themselves only capable 
of imparting a somewhat orange color to bread, which is shown to be the 


fact when whole wheaten meal is made into bread by a process \yere no 
fermentation or any chemical changes whaiever are allowed to take place. 
Some few years since, a process was invented in America for removing the 
outer seed coat of the wheat grain without injuring the grain itself, by 
which it was proposed to save that highly nutritious portion which is torn 
away, adhering to the bran in the ordinary process of grinding, and lost to 
human consumption. The invention was brought under the notice of the 
French Emperor, who caused some experiments to be made in one of the 
government bakeries to test its value. The experiments were perfectly 
satisfactory so far as the making of an extra quantity of white flour was 
concerned; but when this flour was subjected to the ordinary process of 
fermentation, and made into bread, much to the astonishment of the parties 
conducting the experiments, and of the inventor himself, the bread was 
brown instead of white. The consequence, of course, has been that the 
invention has never been brought into practical operation. 

It has been estimated that as much as ten or twelve per cent of nutritious 
matter is separated, adhering to the bran which is torn away in the process 
of grinding; and until very lately this matter has been considered by chem- 
ists to be gluten. It has, however, been shown by M. Mouries to be chiefly 
a vegetable ferment, or metamorphic nitrogeneous body, which he has named 
Cerealin, and another body, vegetable caseine. 

Cerealin is soluble in water, and insoluble in alcohol. It may be obtained 
by washing bran, as procured from the miller, with cold water, in which it 
dissolves, and it may be precipitated from the aqueous solution by means of 
. alcohol; but, like pepsin, when thus precipitated it loses its activity as a 
solvent or ferment. In its native state, or in aqueous solution, it acts as the 
most energetic ferment on starch, dextrine, and glucose, producing the lactic 
and eyen the butyric changes, but not the alcoholic. It acts remarkably on 
gluten, especially when in presence of starch, dextrine, or glucose. The 
gluten is slightly decomposed at first, giving ammonia, a brown matter, and 
another production which causes the lactic acid change to take place in the 
starch and glucose. The lactic acid thus produced immediately combines its 
activity with that of the cerealin, and the gluten is rapidly reduced to solution. 
The activity of the cerealin is destroyed at a temperature of one hundred 
and forty degrees Fahrenheit, according to M. Mouries; but my own experi- 


944 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ments show that it is simply suspended even by the heat required to cook 
bread thoroughly. Thus, bread made without fermentation, of whole wheaten 
meal, or of flour in which there is a large proportion of cerealin, will, if kept 
at a temperature of about seventy-five to eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, pass 
rapidly into a state of solution, if the smallest exciting cause be present, such 
as ptyaline or pepsin, or even that small amount of organic matter which is 
found in impure water; while the same material, when it has been subjected 
to the alcoholic fermentation, will not be affected in a like manner. 

The activity of cerealin is very easily destroyed by most acids, also by the 
presence of alum; and while it is the most active agent known in producing 
the earlier changes in the constituents of the flour, it cannot produce the 
alcoholic; but as soon as the alcoholic is superinduced, the cerealin becomes 
neutralized and ceases to act any longer asa solvent. M. Mouriés, taking 
advantage of this effect of alcoholic fermentation, has adopted a process by 
which he is enabled to separate from the bran all the cerealin and caseine 
which are attached to it. He subjects the bran to active alcoholic fermenta- 
tion, which neutralizes the activity of the cerealin, and at the same time 
separatés the nutritious matter; and then, having strained this through a fine 
sieve, he adds it to the white flour in the preparation of white bread, by 
which an economy of ten per cent is effected, and the color of the bread is 
not injured. 

The peculiar action of cerealin asa special digestive solvent of the con- 
stituents of the flour— gluten and starch —has been practically tested by 
Mr. Darby in a series of careful experiments. He found that when two 
grains of dry cerealin were added to five hundred grains of white flour, and 
the whole digested in half an ounce of water at a temperature of ninety 
degrees for several hours, ten per cent more of the gluten, and about five per 
cent more of the starch, were dissolved than when the same quantity of flour 
was subjected to digestion without the addition of cerealin; but in which, 
of course, there was a small amount of cerealin that is present in all flours. 
The action of cerealin upon the gluten of wheat is precisely similar to that 
of pepsin on the fibrine of meat. Pepsin, acting alone on fibrine, dissolves 
it, but very slowly; but if lactic acid be added, solution takes place very 
rapidly. In like manner, the starch present with the giuien of wheat is 
acted upon by the cerealin, and produces the necessary lactic acid to assist in 
the solution of the giuten by cerealin. 

With the knowledee thus obtained of the properties of this suites 
cerealin, it is not difficult to understand why the administration of bran- 
tea, with the food of badly-nourished children, produces the remarkable 
results attributed to it by men both experienced and eminent in the medical 
profession; and why, also, bread made from whole wheaten-meal, which 
contains all the cerealin of the grain, should prove so beneficial in some 
forms of mal-assimilation, notwithstanding the presence of the peculiarly 
indigestible and irritating substance forming the outer covering of the grain. 

It will be seen that in all the methods of bread-making hitherto adopted, the 
peculiar solvent properties of this body, cerealin, have been sought to be 
neutralized simply because it destroys the white color of the bread during 
the early stages of panary fermentation. It is by thus destroying the activity 
of the special digestive ferment which nature has supplied for the due 
assimilation by the economy of the constituents of the wheaten grain, that 
wheaten bread is rendered incapable of affording that sustenance to the 
laboring man which the Scotchman obtains from his oatineal porridge. 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 245 


Although the new bread has been as yet but little more than experimentally 
introduced to public consumption, I have already received from members of 
my own profession, who have recommended it in their practice, as well as 
from non-professional persons, accounts of the really astonishing results 
that have followed its use in cases of deranged digestion and assimilation. 
Private gentlemen have sought interviews with me to record the history of 
their recovery to health, after years of suffering and misery, by the simpie 
use of the bread as adiet. And cases are tow numerous that have been 
communicated to me by medical men of position, in which certain distressing 
forms of dyspepsia, which had remained intractable under every kind of 
treatment, have yielded as if by magic almost immediately after adopting 
the use of the aérated bread. 

IT am disposed to attribute the beneficial effects of the new bread to two 
causes. The one to the absence of the prejudicial matters imparted to ordi- 
nary bread by the process of fermentation; and the other to the presence in 
the bread, unchanged, of that most essential agent of digestion and assimi- 
lation, cerealin. 

I believe the prejudicial matters imparted to bread by fermentation to be 
chiefly two, — acetic acid and the yeast-plant. The first is produced in large 
quantities, especially in hot weather, by the oxydation, by atmospheric con- 
tact, of the alcohol produced. The second is added when the baker forms 
his sponge, and is also rapidly propagated during the alcoholic fermentation, 
and cannot of course be afterwards separated from the other materials in the 
manner that the yeast and other débris of fermentation separate themselves 
from wine and beer by precipitation im the process of fining. Nor is the life 
of the yeast-plant generally destroyed in baking, because it requires to be 
retained at the boiling point for some time before it is thoroughly destroyed; 
and bread is generally withdrawn from the oven, for economical reasons, 
even before the centre of the loaf has reached the temperature of two hun- 
dred and twelve degrees. It is not difficult to understand how the most 
painful and distressing symptoms and derangements may follow the use of 
bread in which the yeast-plant is not thoroughly destroyed previous to inges- 
tion, and in those cases of impaired function in which the peculiar antiseptic 
influence of the stomachal secretions is deficient, and is incapable of prevent- 
ing the development of the yeast-plant in the stomach, and the setting up of 
the alcoholic fermentation to derange the whole process of digestion and 
assimilation, 

The presence of cerealin in bread is as beneficial as that of acetic acid and 
the yeast-plant is prejudicial. Digestion, or the reduction of food, is evidently 
essentially dependent on the action of a class of substances which chemists, 
for want of a better term, have called ferments; to these substances belong 
pepsin, ptyaline, emulsin, diastase, and cerealin. These are evidently types 
of a very numerous class, which act by producing those molecular changes 
in organic substances in which digestion consists; and since the purpose of 
digestion, or solution, is to prepare from heterogeneous substances taken as 
food a chyle, which shall not only when absorbed present all the elements of 
healthy blood, but shall, previous to absorption, possess the properties which 
will constitute it the proper stimulus to the functional activity of the lacteals, 
it would appear to be necessary that each distinct substance taken as food 
should be furnished, not with its simple chemical solvent, but with that 
peculiar form of solvent, or ferment, which alone can carry it through those 
molecular changes which shall terminate in the production of healthy chyle. 

21* 


946 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Hence we should infer that a substance was digestible or indigestible just in 
proportion to the provision that is made for its reduction to the standard of 
healthy chyle; and that substances which have hitherto been incapable of 
affording any nutrition whatever may at some future day be rendered highly 
nutritious, simply by adding to them suitable ferments, artificially obtained 
or otherwise, that shall secure their passage through the proper molecular 
changes. Indeed, I think this subject opens to us that very wide field of 
inquiry, as to whether the cause and prevention of disease, and the beneficial 
administration of remedies, may not, for the most part, if not entirely, be 
dependent on the action of substances analogous to such bodies as ptyaline, 

pepsin, cerealin, etc., acting in concord with, cr retarding and opposing, the 
vite) *—7.cuons of tissues; and that, by more profound inquiry in this field 
of research, the physiologist and the pathologist may not at a future day lay 
the foundation of true scientific medicine. 


PRESERVATION OF FLESH BY VERDEIL. 


Having been separated from the bones, and, as far as possible, from fat, 
the flesh is cut into slices from one to five centimetres (one centimetre 
— (3937 inch) in thickness; the slices being cut as nearly as possible across 
the grain of the flesh. These are now laid upon hurdles of basket-work, 
which are subsequently placed in a chamber. As soon as a sufficient num- 
ber of the trays have been introduced into the chamber, it is closed, and 
steam, under a pressure of three or four atmospheres, consequently of 135° to 
145° C. (= 275° to 293° F.), is admitted through several openings. The cham- 
ber, which may be of lead or iron, must not be absolutely tight, a small 
outlet for the steam being necessary, in order that the pressure may not 
become too great. After from six to ten or fifteen minutes, according to the 
kind of flesh and the thickness of the slices, the steam is shut off, this part 
of the process being finished. The flesh is now very nearly in the condition 
of boiled meat, but has retained all of its ingredients, the albumen having 
been coagulated, its taste recalling that of roasted meat. It presents a 
wrinkled appearance, is of a gray color, and may be readily divided. Being 
removed from the steam-chamber, the flesh is now placed upon trays, or 
hung upon hooks, in another chamber, which is warmed, but in which the 
temperature is never allowed to exceed 40° or 50° C. (= 104° to 122° F.). 
The drying process is completed in the course or eight or twelve hours. 

Packed in tight casks or in tin boxes, so that it may be protected from the 
action of moisture and from insects, the flesh thus prepared may be pre- 
served for any length of time which may be desirable. It is, nevertheless, 
well to place a layer of salt in the casks, in order that it shall absorb any 
moisture which the flesh may have retained. Before using this meat it must 
be soaked for an hour or two in warm water, in which it softens and regains 
its original condition. When boiled with water it affords an excellent soup, 
and passes into a condition in which it cannot be distinguished from fresh 
meat. — Le Génie Industriel. 


INQUIRIES INTO THE PHENOMENA OF RESPIRATION. 


In a communication to the ZL. E. and D. Philosophical Journal, Jan., 1860, 
Dr. Edward Smith gives the result of numerous inquiries into the quantity 
of carbonic acid expired, and of air inspired, with the rate of pulsation and 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 247 


respiration, — 1st, in the whole of the twenty-four hours, with and without 
exertion and food; 2d, the variations from day to day, and from season to 
season; and, 3d, the influence of some kinds of exertion. 

After a description of the apparatus employed by previous observers, he 
describes his own apparatus and method. This consists of a spirometer to 
measure the air inspired, capable of registering any number of cubic inches, 
and an analytical apparatus to abstract the carbonic acid and vapor from 
the expired air. The former is a small, dry gasmeter, of improved manu- 
facture, and the latter consists of, — 1st, a desiccator of sulphuric acid to 
absorb the vapor; 2d, a gutta-percha box, with chambers and cells, con- 
taining caustic potash, and offering a superficies of 700 inches, over which 
the expired air is passed, and by which the carbonic acid is abstracted; and, - 
3d, a second desiccator to retain the vapor which the expired air had carried 
off from the potash box. A small mask is worn, so as to prevent any air 
entering the lungs without first passing through the spirometer, and the 
increase in the weight of this with the connecting tube and the first desicca- 
tor gives the amount of vapor exhaled, whilst the addition to the weight of 
the potash box and the second desiccator gives the weight of the:carbonic 
acid expired. The balances employed weigh to the one-hundredth of a 
grain, with seven pounds in the pan. By this apparatus the whole of the 
_ carbonic acid was abstracted during the act of expiration, and the experi- 
ment could be repeated every few minutes, or continued for any number of 
hours, and be made whilst sleeping and with certain kinds of exertion. 

The amount of carbonic acid expired in the twenty-four hours was deter- 
mined by several sets of experiments. Four of these, consisting of eight 
experiments, were made upon four gentlemen: on the author, Professor 
Frankland, F. R. 8., Dr. Murie, and Mr. Moul, during the eighteen hours of 
the working day. In two of them, the whole of the carbonic acid was col- 
lected, and in two others the experiment was made during ten minutes, at 
the commencement of each hour, and of each hour after the meals. The 
quantity of carbonic acid varied from an average of 24.274 ounces in the 
author to 16.43 ounces in Professor Frankland. The quantity evolved in 
light sleep was 4.88 and 4.99 grains per minute, and scarcely awake, 5.7, 
0.94, and 6.1 grains at different times of the night. The author estimates 
the amount in profound sleep at 4.5 grains per minute; and the whole 
evolved in the six hours of the night at 1950 grains. Hence the total quan- 
tity of carbon evolved in the twenty-four hours, at rest, was, in the author, 
7.144 ounces. The effect of walking at various speeds is then given, with 
an estimate of the amount of exertion made by different classes of the com- 
munity, and of the carbon which would be evolved with that exertion. 

The author then states the quantity of air inspired in the working day, 
which varied from 583 cubic inches per minute in himself to 365 cubic inches 
per minute in Professor Frankland; the rate of respiration, which varied in 
different seasons as well as in different persons; the depth of inspiration, 
from 30 cubic inches to 39.5 cubic inches; and the rate of pulsation. The 
respirations were to the pulsations as 1 to 4.63 in the youngest, and as 1 to 
5.72 in the oldest. One-half of the product of the respirations into the pul- 
sations gave nearly the number of cubic inches of air inspired in some of 
the persons, and the proportion of the carbonic acid to the air inspired 
varied from as 1 grain to 54.7 cubic inches to as 1 grain to 58 cubic inches. 
The variations in the carbonic acid evolved in the working day gave an 
average maximum of 10.43 and a minimum of 6.74 grains per minute. The 


248 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


quantity increased after a meal and decreased from each meal, so that the 
minima were nearly the same, and the maxima were the greatest after 
breakfast and tea. 

The effect of a fast of forty hours, with only a breakfast meal, was to 
reduce the amount of carbonic acid to seventy-five per cent of that which 
was found with food, to render the quantity nearly uniform throughout the 
day, with a little increase at the hours when food had usually been taken, and 
to cause the secretions to become aikaline.1! 

The variations from day to day were shown to be connected with the 
relation of waste and supply on the previous day and night; so that, with 
good health, good night’s rest, and sufficienr food, the amount of respiration 
was considerable on the following morning, whilst the reverse occurred with 
the contrary conditions. Hence the quantities were unusually large on Mon- 
day. Temperature was an ever-acting cause of variation, and caused a 
diminution in the carbonic acid as the temperature rose. 

The effect of season was to cause a diminution of all the respiratory phe- 
nomena as the hot season advanced. The maximum state was in spring, and 
the minimum at the end of summer, with periods of decrease in June and of 
increase in October. The diminution in the author was thirty per cent in the 
quantity of air, thirty-two per cent in the rate of respiration, and seventeen 
per cent in the carbonic acid. The influence of temperature was considered 
in relation to season, and it was shown that whilst sudden changes of temper- 
ature cause immediate variation in the quantity of carbonic acid, a medium 
dezree of temperature, as of 60°, is accompanied by all the variations in 
the quantity of carbonic acid, and that there is no relation between any given 
temperature and quantity of carbonic acid at different seasons. Whatever 
was the dezree of temperature, the quantity of carbonic acid, and all other 
phenomena of respiration, fell from the beginning of June to the beginning 
of September. The author then described the influence of atmospheric pres- 
sure, and stated that neither temperature nor atmospheric pressure accounts 
for the seasonal changes. 

The kinds of exertion which had been investigated were walking and the 
treadwheel. Walking at two miles per hour induced an exhalation of 18.1 
grains of carbonic acid per minute, and at three miles per hour, of 25.83 
grains; whilst the effect of the treadwheel, at Coldbath Fields Prison, was to 
increase the quantity to 48 grains per minute. All these quantities vary 
with the season; and hence the author recommends the adoption of relative 
quantities, the comparison being with the state of the system at rest, and 
apart from the influence of food. 


APPLICATION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES TO MEDICINE. 


A discussion which has recently taken place in the French Academy of 
Medicine, on the action of iron used as a medicine, has made known to us this 
unexpected fact, that there are physicians who deny any influence exercised 
by medicines in virtue of their chemical properties, and who. think that the 
physical and chemical actions of the animal economy differ entirely from 
those which are observed in the vegetable kingdom. 


1 The quantity of air was reduced thirty per cent, that of vapor in the expired 


air fifty per cent, the rate of respiration was reduced seven per cent, and of 


pulsation six per cent. 
* 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 249 


At the head of this retrograde school (which ignores the progress made by 
physics and chemistry in the last eighty years, and to whom organized beings 
are composed of a material which is not subject to the general laws of matter 
which composes the universe) appears a physician celebrated more than the 
rest, Dr. Trousseau, who, raising the banner of vitalism, has declared that 
chemical laws expiain nothing when used in relation to man, and that 
medicinal agents act by unknown and very different means from those which 
chemists suppose. Space does not allow us to notice the reply made at the 
same sitting by another physician, Poggiale, who is also somewhat of a 
chemist. But we shall be asked, What is the precise meaning of vitalism? 
Vitalism is a force in the category of what has been called catalytic force: 
this is a word which conceals our ignorance, and which is evidently an 
obstacle to progress. This recalls that saying of Liebig: “‘ If we allow force 
to be created, investigations become useless, and it will be impossible to 
arrive at the knowledge of truth.” Vital force is, then, entirely for those 
physicians who ignore the first notions of physics or chemistry, and think all 
has been said when they have installed this senseless word in place of an 
organic fact which ranks under the laws of mechanics, physics, or chemistry. 
Vital force is insufficient to explain how it happens that a large number of 
substances, such as sugar, tartaric and malic acids, sulphur, sulphurets, 
salicine, etc., etc., undergo in the animal economy the same changes as when 
subjected to chemical action. 

When we remember that slight compression of a muscle suffices to develop 
heat, and that its contraction evolves electricity; that in order to establish 
chemical action it suffices to place two heterogeneous bodies in contact, one 
is surprised that medical men should seek to explain the phenomena of life 
by “vital force;” as if the material of our bodies was exempted from the 
laws that regulate matter; as if what they call vital laws could interfere with 
the play of physical, mechanical, or chemical laws. — Silliman’s Journal. 


ANASTHETIC ACTION OF CHLOROFORM. 


Dr. Piossek has presented to the Physiological Society of Greisswald an 
account of experiments with chloroform, made under the direction of Pro- 
fessor Hunefeld, which seem to establish the following conclusions as to the 
modus operandi of chloroform beyond a doubt: — 

Chloroform produces anesthesia by abstracting from the blood some of 
the oxygen necessary to the continuance of the organic processes, thus 
causing impaired nutrition of the central organs and nerves; hence the insen- 
sibility of the sensatory, and the relaxation of the motory, nerves. The 
oxygen of the blood probably combines with the carbon (liberated by the 
decomposition of the chloroform) to form carbonic acid; while the chlorine 
and water of the chloroform probably form hydrochloric acid, ete. Into 
what combination this hydrochloric acid may then enter with the ingredients 
of the blood, is as yet unknown. The other anesthetics, ether, amylene, 
ete., act similarly, and their modus operandi may be compared to the narcotiz- 
ing or asphyxiating action of carbonic acid or nitrous oxide. 


COMMERCIAL CHLORIC ETHER. 


It is a source of some inconvenience to apothecaries to know what is in- 
tended by the physician when “chloric ether” is prescribed. On turning 


250 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to the United States Dispensatory, it informs us that a mixture of one part 
of chloroform and two parts of nearly absolute alcohol is called “ strong 
chloric ether,” and is used for inhalation; and that in London, and elsewhere, 
a weak tincture of chloroform is sold under the name of chloric ether, vary- 
ing in strength from five or six to sixteen or eighteen per cent. Dr. 
Thompson originally gave the name of “‘chloric ether” to the Dutch liquid 
(C4 Hs Clo). In the commerce of this country there is a preparation that 
goes by the name of chloric ether, consisting wholly or chiefly of chloroform 
and alcohol, which, when mixed with water, does not separate. On inquir- 
ing of Mr. William Weightman (of Powers and Weightman) what the 
article prepared by them under this name was, he stated that their firm had 
prepared it as they sold it for more than twenty-five years, since soon after 
Mr. Guthrie’s discovery of chloroform, which he called chloric ether. The 
preparation sold by them is obtained by distilling together chloride of lime, 
alcohol, and water, in the proportion of eight pounds av. of chloride of 
lime to a gallon of alcohol and a suitable quantity of water, and distilling a 
gallon of the ‘‘chloric ether.”” As chloride of lime, on the average, yields 
from six to eight per cent of chloroform, it is fair to infer that this prepara- 
tion does not contain more than eight per cent of that substance. It has 
the following properties: It is coloriess, has an agreeable, weak odor of 
chloroform, a sweet, spicy taste of chloroform, with a cooling after-im pres- 
sion, somewhat like that of peppermint. Its specific gravity is .892. When 
mixed with water, in the proportion of one to twenty, it is at first cloudy, 
and almost instantly becomes clear, with but little, if any, separation of 
chioroform. It is this latter property that has caused it to be preferred by 
some practitioners. That the proportion of chloroform in this preparation 
varies is quite certain, as Mr. Weightman states that it is not always of such 
composition as to mix with water without precipitation. It is quite inflam- 
mable, and burns with a yellowish flame, tinged with bluish green. When 
two fluid drachms of chloroform and fifteen fluid drachms of alcohol (ninety- 
five per cent) are mixed, the mixture has a specific gravity approximating 
closely to that of the above ‘chloric ether.”” Such a mixture contains 
about sixteen per cent of chloroform, and when added to water is instantly 
precipitated. Whether the specific gravity of the commercial article is due 
partly to water, or whether the chloroform is so intimately combined with 
the alcohol in the process of making as to render the mixture stable in the 
presence of water, has not been determined; but there isa marked difference 
in the behavior of the liquids with an excess of water.— William Procter, 
Jr., American Journal of Pharmacy. 


EFFECTS OF CARBONIC ACID ON THE SKIN. 


According to a paper recently presented to the French Academy, on the 
above subject, one of the most singular properties of carbonic acid is its 
decided effect upon the skin. All parts of the body that come in contact 
with it feel immediately an extraordinary increase of heat: which is not 
exhibited by the thermometer. A person placed in a room heated to 
twenty degrees Centigrade, and plunging his naked arm into a receiver full 
of carbonic acid gas, feels as though he had put his arm into something 
fifteen or twenty degrees hotter than the air of the chamber. This property 
has been turned to account medically in thermal establishments where baths 
and douches of the gas, sometimes pure and sometimes mixed, have been 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 251 


administered to invalids, with what effect is not stated. M. Boussingault 
says that in a trench of an old sulphur-mine in New Granada he was almost 
suffocated and thrown into a violent perspiration by this gas, the heat of 
which he believed, at the time, to be equal to forty degrees; but his ther- 
mometer, after being left an hour in the trench, only marked nineteen 
degrees, — three degrees, in fact, less than the temperature of the surface in 
the shade. The professor also felt a pricking sensation in the eyes from the 
effect of the gas, and he was assured by the miners that they almost all 
suffered from weakness and blindness. 


ANTIDOTE FOR PHOSPHORUS. 


Poisoning by phosphorus is becoming common from the facility of procur- 
ing friction matches. It is, therefore, important that the antidote which has 
of late been found the most effacious should be extensively known. 

Messrs. Antonielli and Barsorelli have shown by numerous experiments 
on animals : 

ist. That fatty matters should not be employed in poisoning by phos- 
phorus, as these matters, far from preventing its action on the viscera, on 
the contrary increase its energy, and facilitate its diffusion through the 
economy. 2d. That calcined magnesia, suspended in boiled water, and 
administered largely, is the best antidote, and, at the same time, the most 
appropriate purgative to facilitate the elimination of the toxic agent. 3d. 
That the acetate of potash is extremely useful when there is dysuria in 
poisoning with phosphorus. 4th. That the mucilaginous drinks which are 
given to the patient should always be prepared with boiled water, so that 
those beverages may contain as little air as possible. 


LIEBIG’S ARTIFICIAL TARTARIC ACID. 


The identity of the tartaric acid prepared artificially, 7. e., not from its 
compounds, but out of its components, by Professor Liebig, has been further 
confirmed by the optical relations of the acid as regards the polarization of 
light. 

This discovery is likely to throw considerable light upon certain processes 
or the relations of certain products of vegetable life. Thus we see that unripe 
grapes contain tartaric acid, which gradually disappears, and in its place we 
find the mature grape to contain sugar, a carbo-hydrate; and since tartaric 
acid is now prepared from carbo-hydrates, it may be presumed with great 
probability that by the reverse procedure the plant converts the acid into 
sugar. Liebig considers tartaric acid in its primary composition to be oxalic 
acid partly converted into a carbo-hydrate or paired with a carbo-hydrate. 
There are undoubtedly similar relations between malic and citric acid, and the 
antinitrogenous substances, as starch, pectin, etc., occurring simultaneously 
with these acids in the various fruits. The most recent experiments insti- 
tuted in Liebig’s laboratory have brought to light the very surprising fact 
that maiic acid is made to yield aldehyde by a simple process of oxidation, 
viz., heating with black oxide of manganese, and that citric acid will yicld 
acetone under the same circumstances. These results confirm Liebig’s theory 
of the constitution of tartaric acid; for the elementary constitution of malic 
acid is that of oxalic acid combined with aldehyde, and that of pyro-citric or 


252 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


citra-conic acid, which is formed by heating citric acid, consists of the ele- 
ments of oxalic acid combined with acetone. 

The future investigations of these highly important discoveries promise a 
rich harvest for the physiological chemistry of vegetable life.— Buchner’s 


Repertorium. 


ELECTRICAL CONVERSION OF SUGAR INTO ALCOHOL. 


At a recent meeting of the French Academy, M. Niepce St. Victor read a 
paper giving an account of some experiments which showed that, under cer- 
tain circumstances, electricity produced the same effect on sugar as fermen- 
tation does, transforming it into alcohol. He found that by passing an 
electric current through very sugary white wine, the wine loses all its sugar, 
and becomes much more alcoholic. On the other hand, the effect of the 
action of light on absolute alcohol, under certain conditions, is to re-transform 
a portion of the alcohol back into sugar; the alcohol becoming very sugary, 
and having its strength reduced several degrees. 


ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE ANIMAL PORTION OF OUR FOOD, 
AND ITS RELATIONS TO BREAD. 


The general conclusions of a paper on the above subject, recently read 
before the Chemical Society, London, by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, were, 
that only a small proportion of the increase of a fattening animal was com- 
posed of nitrogenous matter; that from five to ten per cent only of the nitro- 
genous matter of the food was stored up in the body of the animal; but that 
the amount of fat stored up was frequently greater than the amount supplied 
in the food, despite the loss incurred in the maintenance of the respiratory 
function. Hence the comparative values of fattening foods were propor- 
tional rather to the amounts of respiratory than of assumed flesh-forming 
constituents. It was calculated that in those portions of the carcasses of oxen 
actually consumed as human food, the amount of dry fat was from two to 
three times as great as the amount of dry nitrogenous matter, and in the 
eaten portions of the carcasses of sheep and pigs more than four times as 
great. By substituting for the above proportions of fat their respiratory 
equivalents in starch, so as to allow of a comparison between meat and bread, 
the ratios become six or seven to one, and eleven to one, respectively. From 
the independent determinations of Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, Dr. F. Watson, 
and Dr. Adling, it appeared that in wheat bread the ratio of starchy to nitro- 
genous matter was as six or seven to one, so that in bread the proportion of 
assumed flesh-forming constituents to respiratory constituents was greater 
than in the eaten portions of sheep and pigs, and quite equal to that of the 
eaten portions of oxen, —a conciusion altogether opposed to the prevalent 
notions on the subject. 


A NEW ALKALOID IN COCA. 


Coca is the name under which the leayes of several species of Erythroxylon 
are and have been known in Peru from time immemorial, and which, espe- 
cially among the Indians, are used for chewing, mixed with a little unslacked 
lime or wood-ashes. A moderate use is said to produce such an excitement 
of the functions as to enable the chewer to remain some time without food, 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 258 


and to bear the greatest bodily exertions; while an immoderate chewing of 
coca, like that of opium, frequently becomes an habitual vice, producing all 
the deleterious symptoms and consequences of narcotics, such as a state of 
half intoxication, of half drowsiness, with visionary dreams, premature 
decay, complete apathy, and idiocy. These peculiar symptoms rendered the 
presence of a narcotic principle very probable, and have induced Professor 
Weehler to undertake the investigation of the substance. The examination 
has so far succeeded by the usual method for the separation of alkaloids, in 
eliminating a crystallizable base, cocaine, crystallizing in small prisms, 
devoid of color or odor, slightly soluble in water, more readily in alcohol, and 
very easilyin ether. It possesses a strongly marked alkaline reaction, and a 
bitter taste, and acts in so far peculiarly as it transiently benumbs or almost 
paralyzes the part of the tongue which it touches. It bears some resemblance 
to atropine in its chemical relations, and forms perfect salts with the acids. 


BEET-ROOT ALCOHOL. 


The following process for distilling alcohol from the sugar-beet is adopted 
at an establishment in Kent, England. To three-quarters of a ton of beets, 
which are sliced lengthwise by machinery, 300 gallons of wort prepared by 
maceration of beets, to start with, are poured on; a quart of sulphuric acid 
is added, and at the end of twenty-four hours the slices are ready for distil- 
lation. Placed in iron cylinders, divided into compartments, each compart- 
ment is drawn upon successively, so that there is a continuous flow of spirit 
until the end of the process. The spirit is said to resemble small-still whis- 
key, and under proper treatment becomes a neutral spirit, useful for many 
industrial purposes. 


DETERMINATION OF ORGANIC MATTER IN WATER. 


M. Emile Monnier presented to the Academy of Sciences of Paris an 
interesting note on the determination of the organic matters in the waters of 
the Seine. The re-agent which he employs is the permanganate of potassa. 
The weight of this salt decomposed being sensibly proportional to that of 
the organic matter, the problem is reduced to the determination of the 
weight of permanganate decolored by a given quantity of the water. 

The test-liquor which he employs is prepared by dissolving one gramme 
of pure permanganate in one litre of distilled water; each cubic centimetre 
of this liquid contains one milligramme of the salt. To perform an analysis, 
proceed as follows : — 

Pour into a matrass a half-litre (about a pint) of the water, and bring it to 
the temperature of 158° F.; add through a pipette one cubic centimetre of 
pure sulphuric acid; then add the test-liquor until a permanent coloration is 
produced; the number of cubic centimetres of this liquor. added, gives at 
once in milligrammes the weight of the re-agent decomposed by one litre of 
water. At about 158° F. the decomposition of the organic matters is rapid; 
at common temperatures it would require more than twenty-four hours to be 
complete. 

The sensibility of the permanganate is very great; one gramme of tannin 
in two cubic metres (or one part of tannin to two million parts of water), 
and eyen one part by weight of sulphuretted hydrogen in eleyen miilion 
parts of water, will discolor it. — Cosmos. 

22 


254 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


VEGETABLE COLORING MATTER. 


According to M. Filhol, there exists in nearly all flowers a substance 
which is scarcely colored when in solution in acid liquids, but which becomes 
of a beautiful yellow color when acted on by alkalies. ‘This substance has 
the following properties. It is solid, and of a slightly greenish-yellow color. 
It is uncrystallizable, soluble in water, alcohol, and ether, and not volatile. 
When moistened with strong hydrochloric acid, it takes a bright yellow tint, 
which immediately disappears when the mixture is diluted with water, 
leaving an almost colorless solution, to which alkalies communicate a yellow 
color. The matter is found in the green parts of plants as well as the flow- 
ers, and is, no doubt, the yellow dye found in the leaves of various plants. 
M. Filhol adopts the name given to it by Hope, and calls it Xanthogene. 
Mosses, he says, do not contain it, or, at most, only a trace. It is also 
absent from some flowers, among others the Pelargonium Zonale, and inqut- 
nans Papaver rheas, Camellias and Salvias. These flowers, under the influ- 
ence of alkalies, become blue or violet, without the least mixture of green. 
The coloring matter of these flowers is much less alterable under the 
influence of air and alkalies than that of most other flowers. 

Chemists who have examined yellow flowers have proved that they owe 
their color to severa] immediate principles; among others, xanthine and ran- 
theine. The author has discovered xanthine in fruits as well as flowers. — 
Chemical News. 


ON THE POISONS FOUND IN ALCOHOLIC SPIRITS. 


The following communication on the above subject, by Dr. A. A. Hayes of 
Boston, appears in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: — 

Frequently, within the past few years, the public journals have called 
attention to the existence of poisonous bodies, especially strychnine, in the 
spirits produced from grains, and no little excitement has grown out of such 
announcements. 

A somewhat extended series of analytical observations on these spirits, 
from many sources, has convinced me that no good reason for such a state- 
ment could be found, and my conclusion has been supported by the testimony 
of those who are opposed to the manufacture, but who frankly admit that 
no case has ever fallen under their notice, at the places of manufacture, 
which would lead to even an inference in regard to the adding of any dele- 
terious body to the distilled spirits. The addition of non-volatile bodies to 
the fermented worts, if made, would not contaminate the spirits distilled 
from them, and it is probable that the supposition, in relation to the use of 
strychnine for the purpose of increasing the produce of whiskey, arose from 
the ruse of a foreman, who wished to conceal the particular characteristics 
of his ferments in daily use. In low places where such spirits are retailed, 
drugs which produce narcotic effects or temporary frenzy are doubtless 
resorted to in special cases, while the infusing of pepper or salt is not a very 
rare occurrence. ; 

Cases of sudden poisoning by the low-priced, common spirits frequently 
occur, which are not necessarily referable to poisons of foreign origin. 
Some of the so-called fusel-oils, produced in the fermentation of mixed 
grains, either sound or after they have become injured from exposure, act 
as powerful poisons, and in some states of depressed action of the human 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 253 


system, fatal effects would doubtless follow from the introduction of such 
oils into the stomach. 

As a general statement, the spirits produced in this country to serve as 
beverages are remarkable for their purity and freedom from any substances 
which careful rectification can remove. When, through age and suitable 
exposure, the oils contained in them have passed into ethereal bodies, and 
thus ripened the spirits, they become equal in soundness and purity to any 
products imported from abroad, and far less deleterious than most of the so- 
called brandies of the present time. 

There is, however, present in the newly distilled, and in most cases in the 
older spirits, a source of danger which, so far as I can learn, has been over- 
looked, or possibly attributed to criminal intention, which should be publicly 
known, and is of especial interest to the medical profession. 

Newly distilled spirits, of the most common kind, often contain salts of 
copper, of lead, or tin, derived from the condensers in which the vapors are 
reduced to a fluid form. The quantity of copper salt contained in the bulk 
usually taken as a draught is sufficient to produce the minor effects of 
metallic poisoning; the cumulative character of these poisons may even lead 
to fatal consequences. With a knowledge of the fact now stated, instead of 
resting on a supposition of the existence of an organic poison in the spirits 
which have caused sickness, the physician may notice the symptoms of 
metallic poisoning in persons addicted to the habit of consuming newly 
distilled spirits, and interpose his aid in preventing the fatal termination of 
vicious indulgence. : 

Since I first demonstrated the fact of the frequent occurrence of these 
metallic salts in the more recently manufactured spirits, the investigation 
has taken a wider range, and the results have proved that as all spirits at 
one time were new, so with few exceptions, arising from peculiar rectifi- 
cations, most spirits have been, or are, more or less contaminated by 
metallic compounds. Old or more matured spirits have generally lost every 
particle of the salts once held in soiution. Changes in the organic solvent 
have caused the deposition of the metallic compound, accompanied by the 
organic matter from obvious sources, and in such spirits thé metallic oxide 
is always found, if it has been present, in the dark-colored matter which 
has been deposited at the bottom of a cask at rest. This dark deposit has 
the appearance of, and has been mistaken for, charcoal, detached from the 
charred staves of the casks in which the spirits have been stored. 

Of this dark deposit every sample has, on examination, afforded abun- 
dance of copper, copper and tin, or copper and lead, even when taken from 
the finer qualities of foreign spirits. 

Observations have been made on the nature of this change from a soluble 
to an insoluble state. Samples of new spirits have been kept in glass ves- 
sels until the whole metallic salt has fallen in dark flocks, leaving the clear 
Huid free from any metailic compound and perfectly pure. 

It appears, therefore, that matured spirits lose their poisonous impregna- 
tion during the time necessary to adapt them for use as beverages, and that 
while the clear, transparent fluid contains no metallic impregnation, a turbid 
though ripened spirit may prove deleterious through its suspended metallic 
compounds. 

In order to avoid the poisonous effects of these salts, perfectly well- 
ripened and clear spirits only should be used in the preparation of medicines, 
and when ordered as restoratives, no new or turbid alcoholic fluids should 


256 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


be allowed to enter the room of the patient or hospital. As a further eluci- 
dation of this subject, the following more strictly chemical remarks are 
offered. 

The origin of these salts is connected with the production of acids, as well 
as alcohol, in fermenting vats. When the wort is subjected to heat in the 
still, acetic, butyric, and other acids rise with the vapor of alcohol, and pass 
into the condenser, now most commonly made of copper, with masses of 
solder containing lead. At the instant of condensation, these acids exert a 
power of corrosion on the metals quite unsuspected, and the salts formed 
dissolve in the spirit. Where condensers of pure tin are used, no copper 
salt is found, and a little tin salt takes its place. 

With the vapor of dilute alcohol some vesicular vapor of the wort is car- 
ried forward, and the dextrine which can be found in the spirit; another 
portion of soluble organic matter is abstracted from the wood of the cask, 
and this is often tannic acid. In the subsequent chemical changes, these 
organic compounds unite with the salts, and fall in the form of a sub-granu- 
lar, dark matter, seen in colorless spirits of all kinds. In detecting the 
metals held in solution, the extract obtained, after evaporating the spirit, 
must be destroyed, as usual in toxicological testing, and an acid solution of 
the oxide obtained; or the extract may at once be mixed with carbonate of 
soda, and the metal reduced by the blowpipe flame. When the deposit is 
the subject of trial, the metal or metals appear on fluxing with carbonate 
of soda, in the inner flame produced by the blowpipe, on charcoal. 


ON CATALYSIS; OR, ON THE CHEMICAL AGENTS OF DISEASE IN 
THE LIVING BODY. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture recently delivered on the above 
subject, by M. Claude Bernard, Professor of General Physiology of the 
Faculty of Sciences, Paris : — 

We have hitherto maintained that idiosyncrasies ought to be referred to 
certain peculiar organic predispositions, which, far from introducing physi- 
ological laws of an entirely novel character into the economy, are the natural 
result of the properties enjoyed by the nervous system. 

It is also known that animals debilitated by want of proper nourishment 
submit less readily to the agency of certain poisons than others in a vigorous 
state of health; but it has been questioned whether similar modifications are 
due to nervous influence, and whether the diminished activity of the absorb- 
ent powers is not sufficient to explain them. In order to settle the question 
at once, I injected an aqueous solution of woorara into the veins of two 
rabbits, one of whom had been previously fasting, while the other was duly 
fed; in this manner, absorption was entirely dispensed with, the poison 
being at once conveyed into the blood. The result was such as might have 
been expected. To poison the fasting animal a dose larger by one-third was 
required than had been found sufficient to destroy the other. It is, therefore, 
perfectly clear that all this class of phenomena must be entirely referred to 
the agency of the nervous system. 

But, while the animal is in some measure preserved from the noxious 
influence of certain poisons through the rapidly-increasing debility of its 
nervous system, it becomes obnoxious to the action of morbid influences of 
a totally different character. It even appears to me that in our nosological 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 257 


classifications this peculiar liability of the system might be turned to 
account as regards the etiology of disease. 

To adduce a characteristic instance of this: when frogs have been kept 
for a long space of time in captivity their health declines, and ulcerations 
arise around the nose and mouth; the nervous system being in this case 
considerably depressed, the animal is, of course, found to resist much longer 
the action of strychnia and similar poisons, while parasitical affections spread 
with fearful rapidity. Frogs are subject to the growth of parasitical fungi, 
which, after a certain lapse of time, occasion the animal’s death. Now, ifa 
healthy frog is placed in a jar containing others affected with the above- 
mentioned disease, the new-comer sets contagion at defiance; while if 
another frog, affected with ulcerations in the vicinity of the natural orifices, 
is introduced into the jar, the parasitical vegetation covers it at once. 

It has been found that similar affections always have a strong tendency 
to arise in animals in a low state of health. The itch, a disease which fre- 
quently prevails among horses and sheep, is scarcely ever found to attack 
animals in good condition; and, in man, the lower classes are known to be 
a prey to vermin, especially in childhood and old age; while persons who 
live under more favorable circumstances are scarcely ever affected with this 
inconvenience, except towards the latter end of long and painful diseases; 
for it is generally in such cases that the morbus pedicularis has been observed. 

The decrease of neryous power equally constitutes a predisposition to 
putrid, contagious, and virulent affections; the fact is well known to veteri- 
nary surgeons. ; 

It would appear, therefore, that an opposition exists between the two 
great classes of disease we have just examined; in proportion as the animal 
grows more sensible to the action of the neurosthenic poisons, the power of 
resisting the influence of putrid substances is increased. How is this differ- 
ence to be accounted for? We shall attempt to give you a solution of the 
difficulty. 

That the chemical composition of the blood should incessantly be modi- 
fied, is one of the essential conditions of life; repairing, as it does, the daily 
losses of the economy, and renewing the elements of ali the tissues which 
enter into the system, the blood may be compared to a torrent which con- 
tinually pours out new substances, while other elements are flowing into it; 
and the stronger are the animal’s vital powers, the more rapid are the 
successive changes of the blood; a fact principally observed in birds, which 
enjoy greater vital energy than any other class of animals. The uninter- 
rupted continuation of circulation is, therefore, in such animals, of still 
greater importance than in others; the blood cannot stagnate without 
promptly acquiring septic properties. If the tributary vessels of a muscle 
are tied in a mammal or bird, it becomes a putrid mass within twenty-four 
hours; in a batrachian this change would not take place before a much 
longer space of time. 

Now, you are aware that the nervous system presides over all the phe- 
nomena of life in which motion is concerned; as soon, therefore, as the nerves 
are impaired, circulation languishes, and the chemical composition of the 
blood becomes thereby liable to important changes. If, therefore, an animal 
being given, it is our purpose to preserve it from the action of woorara, 
or similar poisons, we must lower its forces. If, on the contrary, we intend 

22* 


258 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


to preserve it from contagious diseases, we must increase them by all possible 
means. : 

But these septic bodies, or specific poisons, are almost invariably organic 
substances, and are produced within a living organization; here we have, no 
doubt, a peculiar and characteristic biological action; we need not, there- 
fore, be surprised to see pathologists endeavoring to withdraw this class of 
phenomena from the domain of physiology, in order to make them the 
exclusive property of medicine. 

We must not, however, in my opinion, give up all hope of connecting, 
one day, these morbid phenomena with the laws of physiology. If at 
present unable to do so, we shall, no doubt, succeed at some future period. 
Is it not, in fact, quite possible that in animals certain physiological con- 
ditions may arise which would give birth to virulent poisons? We are 
aware that in a perfect state of health several creatures are venomous; 
that is to say, they possess a peculiar virus which nature has given them for 
the purpose of killing their prey and defending themselves from their 
enemies. Here, then, we have a physiological virus; how is it produced 
within the system? The difficulty is quite as great as with regard to morbid 
poisons. 

It would appear that in several cases the noxious substance prevails 
throughout the economy; in other cases, we only discover it in certain 
fluids. The virus which occasions hydrophobia belongs to the latter class; 
it resides exclusively in the animal’s saliva. We are not yet aware whether 
any one of the salivary glands is its peculiar seat, or whether it is indiffer- 
ently secreted by all of them. No experiments have been tried on this 
point; but it has been experimentally proved that the peculiar venomous 
principle does not exist in the blood; transfusion does not convey the disease 
from a mad dog toa healthy one. 

It is a singular fact, and one which preéminently deserves our attention, 
that in so general a disease the virus, which alone is capable of transmitting 
the affection, should be exclusively localized within one single apparatus, 
without existing in the blood at large. Yet, if we reflect upon the question, 
we discover in the physiological state a great many similar dispositions; the 
principles which concur in a vast number of physiological functions,— pepsin, 
ptyaline, and the active principle of the pancreatic juice, are they not created 
by special glands? And is not the venom of serpents, which does not exist 
within the blood, produced by a special apparatus? Viewed in this light, a 
nad dog resembles a viper or a rattlesnake. 

But, on the other hand; there exist several virulent diseases in which the 
blood really appears to contain the morbid principle. This is the case with 
the glanders; and it is a well-known fact that healthy animals may be infected 
with the blood of a diseased horse, as well as with the slimy matter that 
escapes from the nose and mouth. 

But another particular which will, perhaps, excite your astonishment, is 
that the normal secretions, bile, saliva, gastric juice, and so forth, do not 
appear to contain the slightest vestige of this poison; while, on the other 
hand, the pathological fluids appear to be impregnated with it, and possess 
the property of transmitting the disease to sound animals,—a fact experi- 
mentally proved with regard to pus, the fluid contained in a hydrocele, and 
various other morbid secretions. For this reason alone are the autopsies per- 
formed on animals that die of the glanders attended with so much danger; 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 259 


the virus pervades the whole system, and the slightest wound is sufficient to 
inoculate the complaint. 

You need not, however, be astonished at this singular property; you have 
already witnessed the repulsion which the salivary glands evince for certain 
substances introduced into the blood; and why should not certain morbid 
principles be in this manner rejected from all the secretions in which the nor- 
mal conditions remain unimpaired? The same thing appears to take place 
with respect to the contagious pneumonia of horned cattle. We are aware 
that volatile emanations transmit the morbid principle; but experiments 
have been tried (in Belgium) for the purpose of inoculating it directly to ani- 
mals, as a preservative against the disease. Something similar to the process 
of inoculation in the small-pox was expected to result from this; it was then 
discovered that neither the animal’s blood nor any of the fluids of the econ- 
omy was endowed with the property of propagating the complaint. It appears 
to have chosen the lungs for its exclusive seat, and the liquids therein con- 
tained, pus, lymph, etc., are alone endowed with the property of transmitting 
the complaint. The intense local inflammation which follows the operation 
sufficiently testifies to the noxious properties of this virus; and when, in order 
not to spoil the animal’s flesh, the tail is selected as the point where inocula- 
tion is to be performed, the subsequent inflammation frequently causes it to 
mortify. 

Here, then, we have another virus which exclusively resides in the tissues 
of the lungs, and is not found in the blood at large; but even in the normal 
State a great many substances are found in various tissues, which do not exist 
in this fluid. Thus, muscular flesh contains a large amount of salts of potash, 
while scarcely any trace of them is found in the blood; in a word, the vari- 
ous bodies found in different parts of the economy are not invariably repre- 
sented in the torrent of the circulation. 

The history of specific diseases offers, therefore, nothing which cannot 
rationally be explained. It now remains for us to discover the physiological 
progress by which a virus may be originated. Nothing is easier than to pro- 
duce putrid affections in sound animals. Thus, when transfusion is per- 
formed under the ordinary conditions, — when the blood is conveyed directly 
from one animal into the veins of another, — no accidents whatever are pro- 
duced; but if the blood is allowed to remain for a short space of time in 
contact with the atmosphere, and if the serum is then injected into the 
vessels, all the symptoms of putrid resorption are observed, and the ani- 
mals die after exhibiting all the characteristic symptoms of putrid infection. 

The blood is, therefore, capable of acquiring toxic properties without the 
intervention of any foreign principle, merely through the modifications which 
take place in its composition when life is extinct. The same results may be 
attained to without even drawing blood from the veins. If the blood of a 
fasting animal is directly injected into the veins of a healthy one, the latter 
is poisoned exactly in the same manner as before; and yet the blood, in this 
case, has not undergone any previous decomposition. 

The introduction of foreign principles, of course, acts upon the blood with 
still more intensity; nearly all the substances known under the name of fer- 
ments are endowed with the property of communicating a deleterious influ- 

nee to this fluid. When yeast is introduced into an animal’s veins, passive 
hemorrhage, and other adynamic symptoms, are immediately produced, and 
death takes place within a few days. Now, if the animal’s blood is trans- 
fused into another’s veins, all the phenomena previously described take place 


260 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in rapid succession, exactly as if yeast, and not blood, had been directly 
poured into the vessels. 

It seems likely that in this case a series of decompositions take place within 
the blood, which give rise to other ferments. The well-known experiment 
related in Pringle’s work on Army Diseases appears to tally with the result 
of our own experiments. 

(In order to prove the influence of putrid emanations, even at a distance, on 
the chemical phenomena of life, he plunged a thread into the yolk of a rotten 
egg, and then suspended it in a jar containing the yolk of another egg, and 
under these circumstances decomposition took place with far greater rapidity 
than usual.) 

We, therefore, perceive that all this series of phenomena hold intimate 
connection with that mysterious chemical process known under the name of 
catalysis. The theory of fermentation is at present so imperfectly known, 
and organic chemistry has in this respect made, as yet, so little progress, 
that it would hardly be fair to reproach medicine with its deficiencies on this 
point. There exists a whole series of diseases which evidently result from 
the chemical actions which take place within the body. It is, therefore, 
chemistry alone which, in its future progress, can teach us the physiological 
laws which embrace this particular branch of medicine. 


CATALYSIS AND CONTACT ACTION. 


It is well known that a super-saturated solution of crystallized sulphate of 
soda, exposed to the air, crystallizes suddenly when touched by a glass rod, 
but that it does not crystallize when this rod is heated to one hundred degrees 
Centigrade. Lcewel attributes this action to the air adherent to the rod; and 
it then becomes an interesting question, whether the air alone suffices for the 
production of the result, or some peculiar quality contained in the air ? 
The latter supposition seems the most probable, since it is not caused by air 
which has been filtered through cotton contained in a tube, nor by air which 
has passed through a properly arranged series of flasks, connected by tubes 
of glass. Air thus agitated, or heated by friction, may be brought in con- 
tact with the super-saturated solution, under the form of a continued current, 
without determining the crystallization, which commences immediately in 
the presence of normal air. Loewel attributes the modification produced by 
the air to the friction produced in his mode of experiment, and a recent 
experiment of his pupil Hirn proves that it is so. 

The air thus rendered passive by Loewel is called adynamic air. Hirn has 
observed that the air is rendered completely adynamic when it escapes after 
compression in the form of a jet from the receiver in which it was confined. 
After this compression it can be directed with impunity into a solution of 
sulphate of soda saturated by heat in a closed vessel. On the contrary, the 
solution solidifies instantaneously if, by the same tube, and without any 
derangement of the apparatus, some bubbles of ordinary air are allowed to 
pass into the solution. Here, then, is an action purely mechanical which 
replaces the action of heat, a remarkable example of the correlation of force, 
which raises a crowd of questions, and which leads to the inquiry, if an 
identical composition of the air should always have an identical action upon 
a living being; if air rendered adynamic by a storm is not found in differ- 
ent conditions, in relation to organized beings, than air long undisturbed? 
This brings to mind that Schroeder and Busch haye shown that fermentation 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 961 


is not caused by air filtered through cotton; and we now ask, if the air, 
rendered adynamic by the process of Hirn, will not possess still more 
passivity ? 

It is an argument more in favor of this theory, now held by the advocates 
of spontaneous generation, to know that it is not by germs of infusoria 
suspended in the air that fermentaion or’ putrefaction is carried on. These 
experiments appear to us to touch questions of the greatest importance in 
the sciences of observation, as well as others relating to the most interesting 
considerations in cosmogony. — Silliman’s Journal, November, 1860. 


ON THE ASSIMILATION OF ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN BY PLANTS. 


It is well known that a controversy has been going on for some time 
between MM. Boussingault and Villé, of France, respecting the assimilation 
of atmospheric nitrogen by plants, —the results of the experiments of the 
latter chemist indicating that plants can assimilate nitrogen, and those of the 
former that no such action takes place. At the last meeting of the American 
Association, Professor Pugh stated that he had, under the auspices of Mr. 
Lawes, the well-known English agriculturist, and at an expense of six thou- 
sand dollars, devoted three years to the investigation of this question; and 
the conclusion arrived at, without going into detail, was, that no assimilation 
of gaseous nitrogen takes place: a result coinciding with that arrived at by 
Boussingault. The experiments had been conducted with the chief cereals, 
wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, buckwheat, clover, and tobacco. In re- 
gard to all but the leguminous plants, there was no doubt as to the above 
result. With the latter, the experiments were less decided, in conse- 
quence of their not having given results so satisfactory as in the case of 
the others. 


ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE NITROGEN OF THE ATMOSPHERE FOR 
THE PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA, FOR FERTILIZING PURPOSES. 


Since the determination of the value of ammonia, ammoniacal salts, and 
nitrogenous compounds generally, as fertilizers, the artificial production 
of ammonia has been regarded as a problem of the highest interest to 
agriculture. But to arrive at this result it is necessary to obtain the 
nitrogen elsewhere than in organic nitrogenous matters, which may, for 
the most part, be employed directly as manures, and of which the limited 
quantities and elevated price permit in any event only restricted and costly 
manufacture. 4 

Atmospheric air is an inexhaustible and gratuitous source of nitrogen. 
However, this element presents so great an indifference in its chemical reac- 
tions, that, notwithstanding the numerous attempts which have been made, 
chemists have not heretofore succeeded in combining it with hydrogen, so as 
to produce ammonia artificially. This result, so long desired, is reported to 
have been obtained during the past year by two French chemists, MM. 
Marguerritte and de Sourdeville, who employ as their agent in the process, 
the earthy base, baryta, converting it, by the aid of atmospheric nitrogen, 
into cyanide of barium, and producing from this last ammonia by the agency 
of vapor of water. The following is a brief resumé of the process employed: 
The baryta is prepared in the first instance by subjecting to a strong heat, in 
an earthen retort, a mixture of carbonate of baryta (the common ore of 


262 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


baryta), coal-tar, and sawdust. Each molecule of the carbonate being thus 
brought in contact with the reducing agent, carbon, excellent results are 
obtained, the decomposition of the carbonate being easy, and the product of 
baryta abundant. (It was from observing the odor of ammonia, which was 
at times developed during their experiments upon this method of preparing 
baryta, that the authors were led to the discovery in question.) When the 
baryta thus obtained is calcined in the presence of charcoal and atmospheric 
air, it combines readily with carbon and the nitrogen of the air, and a forma- 
tion of cyanide of barium and carbonic. oxide results. This product of 
cyanide of barium is then received into an iron cylinder, through which a 
current of steam at a temperature of about five hundred and seventy-two 
degrees Fahrenheit is passed, and under these circumstanees the cyanide of 
barium disengages in the form of ammonia all the nitrogen which it contains. 

Trials made by the discoverers of this process, upon a tolerably large scale, 
are reported to have been eminently successful, leading them to hope that 
not only the various cyanides employed in the arts, but also ammonia and 
nitric acid, may thus be economically produced. 


ON THE SOURCES OF NITROGEN IN PLANTS.—BY DR. CHARLES 
CAMERON, F. R. C. 


Previous to the year 1857, our knowledge of the sources of the most impor- 
tant (agronomically considered) of the organic constituents of the food of 
plants, nitrogen, was limited to the following substances : — 

Ammonia and its salts. 

The nitrates of the alkalies. 

The cyanides of potassium and sodium. 

These substances have been proved, beyond all doubt, to be capable of 
furnishing nitrogen in plants; but there are other bodies whose capability of 
supplying this element to vegetables is still a questio verata. These bodies 
are free nitrogen, —that gas which forms the most abundant constituent of 
the atmospheré, —and the nitrogenous organic matter termed humus (the 
altered remains of plants), a substance which is present in every fertile soil. 

There are, I believe, but few vegetable physiologists who now insist that 
plants are capable of assimilating uncombined nitrogen; but many of the 
most celebrated investigators of phyto-chemistry, whilst admitting that 
plants derive a large proportion of their nitrogen from the ammonia of the 
atmosphere and the soil, maintain that the greater proportion is furnished to 
them by the soluble organic matter of the soil. For my own part, I have 
satisfied myself, by numerous carefully conducted experiments, that neither 
the free nitrogen of the atmosphere nor the combined nitrogen of humus 
can be assimilated by plants. I have further satisfied myself that the nutri- 
ment of plants can only be supplied by substances of a purely inorganic 
nature, under which designation I include a considerable number of sub- 
stances —such as ammonia and urea—which are commonly, though I 
believe incorrectly, considered as pertaining to the organic kingdom. Some 
of the results of my researches in this domain of science have been published 
in various journals since 1857. These researches prove that the sources of 
the nitrogen of plants are not limited to the substances above enumerated; 
but that, in addition to these, urea and the cyanurates of potash and soda, 
compounds exceedingly rich in nitrogen, are capable of vielding that element 
to growing plants. Since the publication of these experimental results, I have 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 963 


occupied myself in investigating still further the interesting subject, and I 
have now to announce the addition of two substances to the list of those 
capable of furnishing nitrogen to plants, namely, nitrate of potash and ferro- 
cyanide of potassium. The experiments by which I succeeded in proving 
the availability of these bodies, as food for plants, were conducted in the 
following manner: — 

A number of peas were selected, some of which were dried, submitted to 
analysis, and found to contain 4.365 per centum of nitrogen. Others were 
sown under the following circumstances: five earthenware vessels, respec- 
tively labelled Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, were partly filled with brick-dust, and in 
each were sown eight peas. These were manured with a mixture composed 
of the following ingredients: The double silicate of potash and soda, chloride 
of sodium (common salt), carbonate of lime (chalk), hydrated sulphate of 
lime (gypsum), freshly precipitated phosphates of lime and magnesia, and 
calcined bones. In addition to this compound, which, it will be perceived, 
was altogether destitute of nitrogen, Nos. 1 and 2 were supplied with ferro- 
cyanide of potassium, and Nos. 3 and 4 with nitrate of potash. Both of 
these substances are well known as nitrogenous compounds. No. 5 was left 
without any nitrogenous substance. The vessels were placed under glass 
shades, and supplied with sufficient light, and with air freed from the slightest 
trace of ammonia or of nitric acid. 

The seeds were sown on the 28th of March, 1860, and, with three excep- 
tions, germinated and developed into plants. Daily, during the growth of 
plants, they were supplied with carbonic acid, both in the gaseous state and 
dissolved in water. ; 

On the 24th of May, the following results were observable. With one 
exception, the plants in Nos. 1 and 2 had attained to a fair size, and looked 
healthy; and, with two exceptions, the same may be said of the plants in 
Nos. 3 and 4; all the plants were in flower. In No. 5 the result was differ- 
ent; the seeds had germinated, and the plants grew favorably for a short 
time, but, at the period above mentioned, presented small, sickly, and de- 
caying haulms, and no appearance of flowers. 

On the 12th of July the plants to which the nitrogenous substances were 
supplied had perfectly matured their seeds, whilst those grown with the 
non-nitrogenous manures had withered away, after attaining a stunted stat- 
ure, and without having made any attempt at maturation. I may here 
remark that the peas grown under the circumstances thus described were 
not what would be considered good by a market gardener, and there was 
but a poor return for the seed. My object, however, was not to grow a good 
leguminous crop, but merely to endeavor to extend our knowledge of the 
nature of the food of plants. 

Some of the plants — straw and seed — grown in Nos. 1 and 2, were ana- 
lyzed, and were found to yield an amount of nitrogen, which, compared to 
that contained in the original seed, was as thirty-eight to one. The nitrogen 
in the plants grown in Nos. 3 and 4 was found to be greater in quantity, in 
the proportion of thirty-four to one, than that contained in the original 
seed. This increase, which could only have been derived from the nitrogen 
in the yellow prussiate of potash and nitrate of potash, proves that these 
substances should be added to the list of materials capable of being used as 
a nitrogenous food by plants. 

Iintended to try some experiments this year with reference to sulpho- 
cyanide of potassium and uric acid, as sources of nitrogen for plants, but 


964 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the want of a sufficient number of large glass shades, and the peculiarly 
constructed vessels attached to them, which I employ in these experiments, 
obliged me to abandon my intention so to do for the present. Sulpho-cyan- 
ide of potassium, like the ferrocyanide of the same base, is innocuous, rich 
in nitrogen, and very soluble. Uric acid contains a larger proportion of 
nitrogen, but is very sparingly soluble. I have no doubt that both substan- 
ces will be found capable of ministering to the wants of vegetable life. It is 
also probable that ferrocyanide of potassium is capable, like its kindred sub- 
stance, the yellow prussiate, of rendering up its nitrogen on the demand of 
the plant. — Chemical News. 


ON THE FORMATION OF CARBONATE OF LIME AND MAGNESIA. 


Mr. T. S. Hunt, of the Canadian Geological Survey, states as the result of 
his recent researches, that “‘if we mingle in equivalent proportions the chlo- 
rides of calcium and magnesium in concentrated solution, and then, having 
precipitated the bases by a slight excess of carbonate of soda in the cold, 
expose the mixture for a few hours in a closed flask to a temperature of 200° 
—212° F., the pasty mass is entirely transformed into a beautiful granular 
powder, made up of spherical, translucent, crystalline grains, which are 
sparingly soluble in cold, dilute, acetic acid, and are a double carbonate of 
lime and magnesia. In my previous and published trials, at temperatures of 
300°—400° F., the product was much less beautiful, and was mingled with 
carbonate of magnesia. It now remains to be seen whether the combi- 
nation may not be slowly effected at a temperature much below 200° F., and 
experiments upon this point are in progress.” 


ON THE PRODUCTION OF OZONE BY MEANS OF A PLATINUM WIRE 
MADE INCANDESCENT BY AN ELECTRIC CURRENT.— BY M. LE 
ROUX. 


If a platinum wire, not too large, be made incandescent by an electric 
current in such a manner that the ascending flow of hot air which has sur- 
rounded the wire comes in direct contact with the nostrils, an odor of ozone 
is perceived. The experiment may be made in the following manner: A 
very fine platinum wire is taken, formed in any shape, and supported in an 
almost horizontal position in any suitable manner. A glass funnel is placed 
over this, so that the air has sufficient access to the wire, on which is adjusted 
a glass chimney of a suitable length; the object of which is to cool the gases 
heated by the wire. The wire is then made incandescent by means of twelve 
or fifteen Bunsen’s cells. The gas issuing from the chimney is found to have 
the odor of ozone; iodized starch-papers are altered in a few minutes when 
placed over the chimney. In this case, the air passing over the incandescent 
wire undergoes a peculiar modification by which it acquires the properties of 
ozone; but whether this is effected by the electricity acting as a source of heat, 
or by its own proper action, must be reserved for further experiments. — 
Comptes Rendus, 1860. 


RESEARCHES BY M. HONZEAU ON OXYGEN IN THE NASCENT STATE. 


When peroxide of barium is acted upon at ordinary temperatures by mono- 
hydrated sulphuric acid, the oxygen evolved possesses very active oxidizing 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. . 265 


properties. A simple apparatus for the purpose consists of a tubulated flask, 
to the narrower neck of which is adapted a tube to convey the gas into a jar 
standing over water. The sulphuric acid being first poured into the flask, 
the peroxide of barium is added to it in small fragments, and the neck quickly 
closed with a cork. The disengagement of gas soon begins, and is more 
rapid as the acid mixture becomes more strongly heated. It is, therefore, 
sometimes necessary to accelerate the action by immersing the flask ina 
water-bath; at other times, on the contrary, to moderate it by the use of 
cold water. 

Nascent oxygen is a colorless gas, having a powerful odor; it must be 
respired with caution, for if introduced into the system in large quantity it 
gives rise to nausea, which may be followed by vomiting. Its odor also, 
which at first is by no means unpleasant, becomes insupportable after smell- 
ing it frequently: its taste resembles that of the lobster. 

When heated to 75° C. (168° F.), or exposed to the sun’s rays, it loses all 
its active properties. In presence of water, and at ordinary temperatures, it 
oxidizes most of the metals, even silver, peroxidizes metallic protoxides, 
and immediately transforms arsenious into arsenic acid, etc. The alkalies 
(potash, soda, lime, baryta), and the stronger acids (sulphuric, phosphoric, 
nitric), act powerfully on it. 

Ammonia in contact with nascent oxygen undergoes a true combustion, 
the product of which is a nitrous compound: on plunging a glass rod dipped 
in ammonia into a jar of the odoriferous oxygen, the vessel is immediately 
filled with white fumes of nitrate of ammonia. 

Phosphuretted hydrogen of the non-spontaneously inflammable variety, 
which is not acted upon at 20° C. (58° F.) by ordinary oxygen, burns with 
emission of light in the odoriferous gas. 

Lastly, hydrochloric acid, dissolved in water, is completely decomposed by 
nascent oxygen; the hydrogen is burned, and the liberated chlorine dissolves 
gold-leaf immersed in the modified acid. 

Nascent oxygen is, therefore, a chlorinizing agent, in the same manner as 
chlorine is an oxidizing agent: it is, in fact, to this remarkable power of 
combustion in nascent oxygen that the metallic peroxides owe their faculty 
of eliminating chlorine under the influence of hydrochloric acid. 

The odoriferous gas acts still more rapidly on iodide of potassium, liberat- 
ing the iodine; it decolorizes spontaneously the tinctures of litmus, cochineal, 
campeachy wood, sulphate of indigo, etc., exhibiting a bleaching power 
equal to that of chlorine itself. Porous bodies absorb nascent oxygen, and 
modify it in a remarkable manner; for when the gas is slowly passed through 
a glass tube filled with asbestos, platinum-black, lint, carded cotton, shreds 
of flannel, etc., its odor and oxidizing properties are completely destroyed. 

The following table gives a summary of the differences between ordinary 
and nascent oxygen :— 


Properties of ordinary oxygen in the Properties of nascent oxygen in the 
Sree state, and at the temperature Sree state, and at the temperature of 
of 15° C.(60° F.) 15° €. (60° F-) 

Colorless gas, inodorous and tasteless. Colorless gas, having a very powerful 

odor, and the taste of lobsters. 

Has no action on blue litmus. Rapidly decolorizes blue litmus. 

Does not cxidize silver. Oxidizes silver. 


539 
23 


266 


Properties of ordinary oxygen in the 
Sree state, and at the temperature 
of 15° C. (60° F.) 


Has no action on ammonia. 


Has no action on phosphuretted hy- 
drogen. 


Does not decompose iodide of potas- 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Properties of nascent oxygen in the 
Sree state, and at the temperature 
of 15° C. (60° F.) 


Burns ammonia spontaneously, and 
transforms it into nitrate. 


Instantly burns phosphuretted hydro- 
gen, with emission of light. 


Acts readily on iodide of potassium, 


sium. setting the iodine free. 


Has no action on hydrochloric acid. Decomposes hydrochloric acid, set- 


ting the chlorine free. 


Has a feeble oxidizing action. Is a powerful oxidizing and chlorin- 


izing agent. 
Stable at 15° C., but destroyed towards 
75°. 


Very stable at all temperatures. 


Peroxide of barium is not the only body which is capable of yielding active 
oxygen. Oxygen in the combined state possesses, indeed, the intensified 
power which distinguishes free oxygen in the nascent state, and which it 
ceases to exhibit when completely isolated, because the temperature at which 
it is usually evolved from its combinations is equal or superior to that at 
which active oxygen passes into the ordinary state. 


WATER-GLASS. 


The following is an abstract of a recent report of a commission appointed 
by the French Government to examine the several processes devised by M. 
Kiihimann, of Lille, for the employment of soluble alkaline silicates for hard- 
ening stone, painting, etc. 

Theory of Hydraulic Cements. — The silicious solution, silicate of potash or 
silicate of soda, forms the basis of all the new processes. Since 1840, 
researches upon the origin and nature of the efflorescences upon walls have 
furnished Mr. Kiihimann with the opportunity of ascertaining the presence of 
potash and soda in most of the limestones of the various geological epochs, 
in larger proportion in hydraulic limestones than in fat limestones (a chaux 
grasse). What would be their influence upon the hydraulic properties of the 
lime? Mr. Kiihlmann thought that, under the influence of potash or soda, 
silicious limestones might give origin, when calcined, to double compounds 
of lime, silica, or alumina, and an alkali analogous to those which would be 
obtained by the calcination of some kinds of hydrated minerals, and that 
these compounds, when afterwards brought into contact with water, would 
undergo an action analogous to that which causes the consolidation of plas- 
ter, viz., hydration, and at last perfect hardness. 

The principal effect of the potash and soda would consist in transferring a 
certain quantity of silica to the lime, and in giving origin to silicates, which 
absorb water with avidity (so as to leave only that portion of water neces- 
sary to their hydrated nature), and become solidified. Numerous facts bore 
out this theory. Quicklime, when left in contact with a solution of silicate 
of potash, is immediately transformed into hydraulic lime. Quicklime and 
an alkaline silicate, very finely pulverized, and mixed in the proportion of 
eleven of silicate to one hundred of lime, likewise furnish an excellent 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 267 


hydraulic lime. A mortar of fat lime repeatedly wetted with a solution of 
alkaline silicate is transformed into hydraulic mortar. Lastly, with the glassy 
silicate and lime more or jess energetic hydraulic cements can be produced 
at will, which will be found very useful in countries where only fat limestones 
exist. 

Silicification. — From observing the great affinity of lime for silica when set 
free in a nascent state from its compound with potash, Mr. Kiihlmann was led 
to study the action of the silicates of potash and soda upon the calcareous 
stones,— upon chalk in particular. He observed that by placing some chalk 
in contact with a solution of silicate of potash in the cold, a portion of the 
chalk is transformed into silico-carbonate of lime, whilst a corresponding 
portion of potash is displaced; that the chalk hardens gradually in the air 
and acquires a greater hardness than that of the best hydraulic cements; if 
the chalk is made into a paste with the silicate, it will adhere strongly to 
bodies, to the surface of which it is applied. Thus a cement was discovered, 
capable of being employed in restoring public monuments and in the manu- 
facture of cornice-work. Pushing his experiments further, he ascertained 
that chalk, when planged into a solution of silicate of potash, was capable 
of absorbing a considerable quantity of silica; by exposing it alternately and 
repeatedly to the action of the silicious solution and to that of the air, he 
found that this stone acquired in time a great hardness on the surface, and 
that the hardening, which was at first superficial, penetrated gradually to the 
centre. 

This silicification of the stone (this is the name given by Mr. Kthlmann 
to this transformation ) is due to the decomposition of the silicate of potash 
by the carbonate of lime on the one hand, and by the carbonic acid of the 
air on the other. <A solution of silicate of potash when left to the air gives 
origin, in fact, after some time, to a geiatinous and contractible deposit of 
silica and to a stratum of carbonate of potash. In course of time the deposit 
of silica acquires sufficient hardness to scratch glass. Two balls of chalk of 
the same diameter and of the same nature were silicified under the same con- 
ditions; the one was exposed to the free action of the air, and acquired more 
hardness than the second, which was kept under a beil-glass in an atmos- 
phere deprived of carbonic acid. In silicification, therefore, as long as the 
stone is porous enough to continue absorbing silicate of potash, a sort of 
hydrated silico-carbonate of lime is formed, which hardens by gradually 
losing its water of hydratation, besides a contractible layer of silica which 
adds to the hardness of the stone. The carbonate of potash produces on 
the surface an almost imperceptible exudation, which diminishes gradually 
and at last disappears entirely, without having in the least altered the sur- 
face of the stone; by means of hydro-fluosilicic acid Mr. Kihlmann has 
succeeded in getting rid of the inconvenience which might result from this, 
and even in adding to the hardness of the stone. Calcareous stones thus 
prepared acquire a compact grain, and a lustrous appearance, and become 
capable of receiving a fine polish. The hardening is singularly assisted by 
heat; and calcareous porous stones, on being plunged into a high-pressure 
boiler containing a bath of silicate of potash, presented, as soon as they 
were withdrawn from this immersion, all the character of compact sili- 
cious limestones, without the least intervention of the carbonic acid of 
the air. 

From limestones Mr. Kiihlmann passed on to porous stones, and has suc- 
ceeded in showing that the action of the carbonic acid of the air upon 


268 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


silicate of potash was sufficient to effect a superficial consolidation of the 
stones, varying with their porosity. 

Upon sulphate of lime or plaster of Paris the action of silicate of potash is 
essentially the same; but it is more rapid, and has the disadvantage of giving 
rise to the formation of sulphate of potash, which, on crystallizing, disag- 
gregates the surfaces. Consequently, the silicious solution ought to be more 
diluted, so as to render the action slower; tne consolidation, however, must 
be sufficient to avoid the effects of the crystallization of sulphate of 
potash. 

Mode of Application.— In what way does Mr. Kiihlmann apply the silicate 
of potash upon monuments and buildings in general? He takes silicate of 
potash prepared in his works, and possessing the composition of soluble 
glass, and dissolves it in twice its own weight of water. This solution is to 
be had in commerce, and marks 35° of Beaumé’s areometer. All that is 
required is to dilute this with twice its volume of water, in order to obtain 
the degree of concentration most convenient for the process of hardening. 
In recent buildings it may be applied at once; older constructions require to 
be cleansed by washing with a hard brush, or by means of a solution of 
caustic potash, and most frequently by smart scraping. Large surfaces are 
sprinkled with the silicious solution by means of pumps or large syringes 
with divided jets. The latter have been employed in Germany since 1847. 
Care must be taken to collect the excess of liquid by means of gutters of 
glazed earthenware placed at the foot of the walls. For sculptures and 
certain portions of buildings, soft brushes are employed, and with great 
advantage, also the painting-brush. Experience has shown that three 
applications of silicate, on three consecutive days, suffice to harden stone. 
The quantity of solution which is absorbed varies with the nature of the 
stone and its porosity; the cost of silicate does not exceed seventy-five cen- 
times (fifteen cents) per square metre for the most porous stones. 

Dyeing of Stones.— Mr. Kiihlmann, observing that the silicification of 
buildings and sculptures gave rise to various colorations, which rendered, 
for instance, the joints more marked, was led to seek a remedy for these 
colorations. By means of a double silicate of manganese and potash he 
obtained a dark solution, which could be applied to very white limestones. 
By suspending some artificial sulphate of baryta in the silicious solution, he 
was able to introduce a little of this sulphate into the porous stone, together 
with the silica, in such a manner as to whiten surfaces of too dark a hue. 
He proved experimentally that porous limestones, when boiled in solutions 
of metallic sulphates (the oxides of which are insoluble in water), give rise 
to the fixation, to a certain depth, of these oxides in intimate combination 
with the sulphate of lime. With sulphate of iron he obtained a rust-color of 
more or less intensity; with suiphate of copper, a magnificent green tint; 
with sulphate of manganese, brown tints; with a mixture of sulphate of iron 
and sulphate of copper, a chocolate tint, etc. He observed, at the same 
time, that the double sulphates thus formed penetrated into the stones, and 
likewise increased their hardness. 

Silicious Painting. — There was but one step from silicification to silicious 
painting. Fuchs, Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Munich, had 
already, in 1847, given the famous German painter, Kaulbach, all the advice 
necessary to enable him, by means of a sprinkling with silicate of soda, to 
fix the fresco-paintings which were then executed in the new museum at 
Berlin. Mr. Kiihlmann went further, and applied the colors directly by 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 269 


means of a brush. He had observed that the action exerted by carbonate of 
lime upon the silicates of potash and soda, viz., the displacement of silica, 
was likewise exerted by the carbonates of baryta, strontia, magnesia, iron, 
lead, etc., and even by other salts, such as chromate of lead, most of the 
metallic carbonates, and even the oxides of lead and oxide of zinc. 

He endeavored at first to replace, in the application of mineral colors upon 
stone, the fixed and essential oils usually employed by solutions of silicate 
of potash. With white-lead, the formation of silicate of lead was too rapid 
to permit the application of this color by means of the painting-brush. 
Oxide of zinc gave satisfactory results. The artificial sulphate of baryta, 
which had already found employment in whitening stones of too dark a 
color, was again usefully employed; and, by mixing it in large proportion 
with the oxide of zinc, Mr. Kiihlmann obtained a white color of greater 
brilliancy and transparency. It appeared, at first, that sulphate of baryta 
could not be employed by itself; but it was found that by applying it 
repeatedly, by means of glue or starch-paste, or by means of a mixture of 
starch-paste and silicious solution, it covered as well as white of lead and 
zinc-white in painting with size or paste colors. This observation was of the 
highest importance; a new white color was found which could be employed 
in the place of those hitherto in use. 

New White Color (Base Blanche). — Your commission has been vividly 
impressed with the results already obtained by the employment of artificial 
sulphate of baryta in the decoration of several buildings at Lille. The bril- 
liancy and whiteness of the finest white-lead is but dim when compared 
With painting in sulphate of baryta. This color possesses the advantage of 
remaining unaltered under the influence of emanations of sulphuretited 
hydrogen; it enables us to execute dim or lustrous white paintings at a 
saving of about two-thirds. Its use must likewise appear of immense 
service viewed from a sanitary point of view. It gets rid, on the one hand, 
of the dangers attending the manufacture and application of white-lead and 
oxide of zinc; on the other, of the odor of the essential oils. Mr. Kuhlmann 
has not shrunk from establishing the manufacture of this baryta-white upon 
a large scale. In his works at Loos, the native sulphate of baryta or heavy 
spar is transformed into chloride of barium, which, when treated in its turn 
with sulphuric acid, at the works of St. André, is again converted into 
sulphate of baryta, which is thus obtained in a state of extreme division 
and purity. 

Mr. Kiihlmann, passing from whites to the various colored mineral sub- 
stances, has observed that, under the influence of silicate of potash or soda, 
the same reactions are produced; that colors which are alterable by the 
alkalies cannot be employed, but that the ochres may be used, as well as 
blue and green ultramarine, oxide of chromium, zinc-yellow, sulphide of cad- 
mium, red-lead, calcined lamp-black, oxide of manganese, etc.; that the 
colors which dry slowly may be rendered fit for painting by mixing them 
with colors which dry more readily, or by the addition of white colors which 
dry rapidly. He found, moreover, that colors which were ground with a 
concentrated solution of an alkaline silicate may be applied more readily 
upon silicified stones than upon those which have not been silicified; that 
in this latter case it is always useful to impregnate the surfaces, some little 
time before applying the colors, with a weak solution of silicate; that, in 
painting apartments, the ordinary process of painting in distemper will be 
found sufficient; and then, to fix the colors, two coats of silicate of potash 

23* 


270 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


or soda, marking 6° to 10° of the areometer of Beaumé, are to be applied by 
means of large and soft brushes, at an interval of several hours. 

Upon Wood. — Upon wood, the application of silicious painting presented 
some difficulties. Woods impregnated with resin do not receive the color 
uniformly. Wetting with the water of the solution tends to cause the wood to 
crack. Ash and yoke-elm, however, answer very well with a few precautions. 
Mr. Kiihlmann has been able to submit to your commission some rather old 
paintings upon wood, which had resisted numerous washings, and the 
intense heat of a fire, close to which they were placed. 

Upon Glass. — Your commission has examined with the greatest interest 
paintings which have been executed upon glass. Artificial sulphate of 
baryta, applied to glass by means of silicate of potash, imparts to it a milk- 
white color of great beauty; in a few days the silica is found intimately 
combined with it, and the color resists washing with warm water. By the 
action of a strong heat, this silicious varnish is transformed into a fine white 
enamel. Blue ultramarine, oxide of chromium, and pulverized colored 
enamels, may be applied. Silicious painting upon glass is destined to find 
advantageous employment in the construction of church windows; whilst 
silicious painting upon stone will serve for mural decorations. 

Following the same order of ideas, Mr. Kiihlmann has extended his 
researches to printing upon paper and upon stuffs, to the employment of 
silicate of soda in scene-painting and in dressing stuffs. 

Upon Pauper. — By grinding the finely-divided charcoal which is employed 
in the manufacture of Indian ink with the silicate, a writing ink is obtained, 
which is almost unassailable by any chemical agent. 

Upon Stuffs.—In calico-printing, silicate of potash replaces albumen, 
which is now employed for fixing colors. The silicious solution is mixed 
with the colors at the moment of priniing; in a few days the design acquires 
such a consistency that the colors resist washing and soap, provided they are 
not alterable by alkalies. 

Printing and Dressing Stuffs. — From a series of experiments undertaken 
with the view of showing that in dyeing it is not correct to assume that 
nitrogenous substances possess a greater aptitude for receiving colors than 
non-nitrozenous substances, and that dyeing rests essentially upon a chemical 
combination with the textile material, either in the natural state or variously 
combined or modified, Mr. Kiihlmann was induced to replace the albumen 
used in printing stuffs, either by a compound of gelatine and tannin, or by 
starch-paste fixed upon the cloth by means of lime or baryta-water, or also 
by the soluble silicates. In printing upon paper, he has succeeded in replac- 
ing the varnish with which it is usual to cover the colors which have been 
fixed by means of gelatine, by a layer of tannin, and even the gelatine itself 
by starch fixed by means of lime or baryta. 


ON THE EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN MINERAL SUBSTANCES FOUND 
IN TREES. 


Ata recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 
Hayes made a report of an examination of a curious mineral substance found 
by Dr. C. F. Winslow in the structure of certain trees of the Sandwich 
islands. 

The substance occurs in the form of hollow and sometimes solid cylinders, 
about one fourth of an inch in diameter; small lateral holes are found opening 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. DRA: 


into and through the cylinders; the color is externally brown, and yellowish- 
gray when freshly fractured. The hardness is greater than cale spar or 
dolomite, and nearly that of fluor spar. Specific gravity, 2.414; and the 
general appearance that of the imitative forms of brown iron ore. 

Boiling distilied water dissolves an organic salt of lime, and the solution 
has a strong earthy odor. Carbonate of soda solution takes: up crenic and 
humic acids. There are no other acids or bases present. One hundred parts 
consist of 


Organic acids and moisture, . : - - : 4 4 : 14.46 
Carbonate of lime, . - - - - ° - : 7 72.82 
Magnesia as a base, . : - ° : - - : - ; 7.82 
Bi-phosphate of magnesia, . : - : : - : : 2.20 

96.80 


A little silica and a mere trace of carbonate of iron were detected. The 
composition of this substance indicates that crenates of lime and magnesia, 
and some ammonia phosphate of magnesia, were absorbed from the soil, and 
in the subsequent decomposition the carbonate of lime formed was rendered 
more compact and hard by the portion of crenate which is undecomposed 
acting as a cement; the humus and humic acids are the usual attendants of 
this decomposition. The mineral substance in such cases has hitherto been 
found occupying the space near the concentric rings of a tree} and not the 
medullary canal, as in this instance. — 


CONSOLIDATED GUNPOWDER. 


Up to the present time the received opinion among the several authorities 
on gunnery has been that gunpowder must be presented to the action of the 
firing material in a granulated condition, in order to make it explode readily. 
Great care has always been taken to proportion the size of the grains to the 
wants of each gun, it being supposed that the powder would burn more or 
less rapidly in accordance with the size of the grains., Captain Brown, R. A., 
of Woolwich, England, has, however, recently introduced with success a 
powder consolidated into somewhat porous cakes, but compressed into a 
space one-fourth less than it occupied as ordinary powder. The process by 
which consolidation is effected is not made public; but, as the compressed 
powder explodes at a slightly lower temperature than’ ordinary gunpowder, 
we conclude that some solution of an explosive compound, similar to gun- 
cotton. is employed. We are assured that the cylinders which have been 
given us for the purpose of experimenting on are composed of government 
powder; and undoubtedly their appearance is exactly like that which might 
be expected from this well-known material, supposing it to be compressed 
and united by some adhesive substance. They are of the Enfield bore, 
containing two and one half drams of powder, capable of resisting any 
ordinary force, and not breaking to pieces without being submitted to some 
strong cutting or crushing instrument. Hence they may safely be carried 
loosely in a cartouch box divided into compartments, and they may each 
readily be united to a ball by means of any gummy matter, with or without 
paper ora patch. We have tried these cylinders, and find them to explode 
just as sharply as ordinary powder, and apparently with the same power 
and with as little residuum. On placing them on an iron, heated over a 


272 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


coke fire, side by side with ordinary rifle-powder, they explode a few seconds 
before the latter, showing that a lower temperature is sufficient for the pur- 
pose; but the difference is so slight as to lead to no practical result. The 
compressed charge is not easily affected by damp, and may be fired imme- 
diately after having been rapidly passed through water. 

We are informed that the process to which the powder is submitted is 
very inexpensive, and, as soon as arrangements are made for its preparation 
and sale, it will be brought into the market at a price very little above that 
of ordinary gunpowder. If so, it will be a great boon to the rifleman, 
whether he loads his piece at the muzzle or the breech. In the former case, 
the solid cylinder will be rammed down entire, with very little adhesion of 
the grains to the sides of the barrel, and consequent injury to its explosive 
power. It is, however, in the breech-loader that the advantage will be chiefly 
felt, as, in all cases where the cartridge can be readily introduced, this com- 
pressed powder may be used without any covering whatever. Thus the 
skin and gossamer cartridges, as well as the paper envelops now adopted, 
will be entirely superseded, and miss-fires with breech-loaders will be still 
more rare than with the muzzle-loader. We hear that Mr. Whitworth, after 
a severe trial of the merits of the invention, has taken out a license to work 
it; and, so far as our experiments have gone, we are led to anticipate that 
it will be of the greatest use to his rifles, as well as to his large guns. Indeed, 
unless some disadvantage attends its employment which we have not dis- 
covered, we expect it will almost entirely supersede the ordinary powder. — 
The Field-Sporting Journal, London. 


SUGAR A REMEDY FOR DRUNKENNESS. 


Dr. Lecceur, of Caen, says that he has found in white sugar as efficacious 
a remedy for drunkenness as ammonia. No rationale has as yet been 
adduced for the action of so simple a substance as sugar, except that it 
serves to bring on a different fermentation than the existing one in the 
stomach, and to neutralize, by the formation of new compounds, the action 
of the liquors. 


DISTRIBUTION OF IODINE. 


Chatin, the well-known French chemist, insists that there is iodine in the 
atmosphere. He has found it in the rain-water of Florence, Pisa, and 
Lucca, as well as at Paris. Further, he adds that he has found it in five 
samples of distilled water, and three specimens of potassium from the best 
laboratories, and he believes that it may be found in all potassiums and 
most rain-waters. M. Chatin cannot succeed in isolating the iodine, but he 
feels none the less certain of its presence. _ 


ON THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF THE SIMPLE SUBSTANCES. 


In a paper recently submitted to the Royal Academy of Belgium, by 
Professor Stass, on the atomic or molecular weight of the simple substances, 
a position is taken in regard to the subject greatly at variance with the views 
generally entertained by chemists. The author states that Berzelius, after 
devoting a great part of his life to endeavoring to determine chemical pro- 
portions, or equivalents, concluded from his researches that there does not 
exist any simple relation between the weight of the atoms of bodies, and 


CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 27a 


retained that opinion to the end of his days. In 1815, however, Dr. William 
Prout, in a memoir on the specific weight of gases, originated the remarkable 
idea that the atomic weight of bodies, well determined at that time, might 
be represented by multiples of the weight of hydrogen gas. This hypothe- 
sis was generally received in England, but not on the Continent, and was 
shown to be inexact by Turner in 1833. In 1839 and 1840, however, its cor- 
rectness with respect to carbon was shown by Dumas and Stass; and also, 
in 1833, with respect to the elements of water, by Erdmann and Marchand; 
while other chemists arrived at a totally different conclusion. Since then, 
M. Stass has given the leisure of years to the study of this subject, under- 
taking his researches in full confidence in the correctness of Prout’s hypothe- 
sis. Now, however, he states that he has arrived at the complete conviction 
that this hypothesis, and all the conclusions derived from it by Dumas and 
others, are contradicted by experiment, and that there does not exist any 
common divisor among the weights of simple bodies which unite to form 
definite combinations, 


ix Eh Oda 0) dae: 


THE DESERT OF SAHARA. 


Tue following summary in respect to Sahara is translated from Karl 
Arenz’s review of the researches of Barth, Overweg, Richardson, and 
Vogel :— 

The Desert of Sahara has been represented as a low, flat plain, scarcely 
rising above the level of the ocean; a vast sea of sand, upon which, besides 
a few craggy lines of rock that project into it here and there, there are no 
other elevations but those shifting mounds and columns of sand that, like 
huge billows, move at the mercy of the wind; a trackless waste, where the 
traveller, after many days’ journey, may still look in vain for a single trace 
either of vegetation or of animal life. Modern researches, however, do not 
sustain this view. On the contrary, they show beyond a doubt that the 
Sahara consists mostly of a series of table-lands of a greater or less eleva- 
tion, jutting up occasionally into mountains, and sometimes divided from 
each other by valleys, or plains covered with sand, and apparently inter- 
minable. Let us take a rapid survey of the principal results bearing upon 
this point. 

On their way from the shore of the Mediterranean to Ghat, Barth’s party 
crossed three high and wide plateaus, parallel with the Mediterranean coast. 
First, came the Gharian plateau, 2000 feet high where first they ascended 
it, but gradually sloping as they passed on, until it terminated at the moder- 
ate height of only 500 feet. Next, the monotonous Hamadah, stretch- 
ing away at a uniform height of from 1300 to 1600 feet, for 120 miles; 
and then, after crossing Wadys of 600 to 700 feet elevation, and miniature 
deserts of 1000 feet, the travellers reached the third, or the Murzuk plateau. 
This plateau is elevated not far from 1500 feet above the level of the ocean. 
Its lowest depression is 900 to 1000 feet high, while other portions attain a 
height of 1800 to 2200. After leaving the Murzuk plateau, the caravan, as 
it went toward Ghat, appears to have found a mean altitude of 1250 to 
1450 feet; and so likewise for some distance to the southward of Ghat, until 
it came to the wild, mountainous region which lies between Ghat and Air, 
where it entered a Wady ( Adschunscher) lying at a height of 2956 feet, and 
situated amid mountain peaks that were roughly estimated as about 4000 
feet high. From Tin Tellust in Air, the altitude of the region was estimated 
at 1894 feet, nor can we suppose the southern Hamadah to lie at a much 
greater depression. 


~ 


GEOLOGY. 275 


Though the Sahara lies at such an elvation, yet we hear of no very lofty 
mountains there; in Air, however, we come upon a few single peaks (the 
Baghtzen, Dodschen, and others), but these are only from 3000 to 5000 feet 
in height. Nor are there any extensive mountain chains, unless we except 
the line of hills between Air and Ghat, and the Uariat, which eastward of 
the Ghat valley stretches north and south, though even this nowhere rises 
to any great height. It would appear that the southern part of this quarter 
of the desert is even more mountainous in its character than the northern, 
while this in its turn, with its extensive plateaus whose scarped sides give 
them the appearance of gigantic blocks that have been suddenly pushed up 
through the ground, possesses a peculiar interest of its own. If we compare 
these lofty plateaus with similar elevations in Europe, we may conceive of 
the highest part of the Gharian as being at an equal level with the most 
remarkable table-lands of Europe, those of Spain and the Morea. The 
two other plateaus may be compared with the highest of the Swiss and South 
German table-lands, while the deep-lying Wady (500 feet) is about the height 
of the elevated plains of Bohemia. 

This portion of the desert is therefore not low, but lofty ; not a monotonous 
dead-level, but a broken highland; in short, it is a series of table-lands of 
different elevations. Neither is this portion of the Sahara by any means a 
sea of sand; in fact, only a comparatively small part of it answers to such 
a description. But though the Sahara, as far as our information extends, 
proves to be a highland, it does not follow that it is so throughout. The 
probabilities of the case, however, are in favor of this conclusion. The 
measurements of Vogel, in the year 1853, on his route from Tripoli over 
Sokna to Murzuk, and thence to Bilma, show that some of the eastern por- 
tion of the desert is likewise a table-land. It is true that he found the tract 
between the base of the Gharian and Sokna much lower than elsewhere 
(Boudschem is only 200 feet above the level of the ocean), but to the south- 
ward of Sokna he ascended a narrow pass of the Black Mountains to a 
plateau of 2000 feet in altitude, which stretched away in an unbroken surface 
of from 1360 to 1590 feet, as far as Murzuk, and hence it appeared probable 
that the Murzuk plateau at its eastern extremity merges into the Hamadah. 
From Aschenumma, in the neighborhood of Bilma, Vogel writes: “I have 
ascertained that the Great Desert is one vast plateau formation, of the 
general height of from 1200 to 1500 feet.” 

With these data before us, based as they are upon scientific research, we 
are prepared to give credence to the reports of the natives respecting the 
mcuntainous character of many portions of the Sahara. The whole south- 
ern region of the Tibbus Desert (Libyan) appears from such reports to. be 
covered with high mountains and mountain ranges; in fact, near its southern 
border two remarkable mountain clusters have been discovered, — the Borghu 
and the Uadschunga, — which are so elevated that the natives dress in furs. 
But the loftiest mountain in the region of the Tibbus is the Tibesty, to the 
northeast of Bilma, which, according to our accounts, is visible at the dis- 
tance of four days’ journey; we know, moreover, that the Tibbus, even from 
the remotest parts of the country, flee for refuge from the attacks of the 
Tuareg to its solitary cliffs, which, with their precipitous sides, tower up 
from the rocky abysses at their base. These rocks are so steep that the 
Arabs say of them, ‘ Your turban will fall off if you attempt to look up to 
their summit; ” and Vozel has aptly compared them to the rock upon which 
the fortress of Konigstein, in Saxony, is built. In regard to the westernmost 


276 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and larger portion of the Sahara, we have similar reports from the natives 
of mountain chains and lofty highlands; as, for instance, of the Black 
Mountains, which extend from the coast far to the inland, and of a moun- 
tain chain fringed on its eastern border by several oases, that of Tuat among 
the rest: but especially renowned is the frowning Haghar group, with its 
three or four sheer, steep, and dizzy walls of rock, each wall 125 miles in 
length; this is said to be surrounded by an immeasurable sea of sand, and 
to form the stronghold of the most powerful and the most predatory of all 
the Tuareg tribes, that of the Haghar Tuareg, who, amid these high moun- 
tain fortresses, are compelled to go clad in woollen and furs. 

And yet there remains, as well in the northern part of the Sahara as in 
much of its western portion, room enough for vast patches of sand or salt 
deserts, among which, according to the accounts of the natives, Tanezruft, 
lying on the route between Tuat and Timbuctoo, is the most remarkable in 
extent; and it may be a question whether a scientific exploration will not 
reveal the existence of the plateau formation at least in some portions also 
of this desert. 

In regard to plants and animals, we find that the necessary conditions of 
their existence, namely, rain, is by no means so rare a phenomenon as our 
earlier accounts have led us to conclude. For, though Sahara may perhaps 
justly continue to be regarded as in the main a rainless belt, yet we fiud 
many exceptions in sudden and very copious showers, and it is altogether 
likely that there are many tracts, like the oasis of Air, which have their 
regular rainy seasons; for we find, even in the northern Hamadah, scattered 
thickets and a few small birds. — Stlliman’s Journal. 


MEASUREMENTS OF THE ALLEGHANY SYSTEM. 


It is well known to the scientific men of this country that Professor 
Arnold Guyot, of Princeton, New Jersey, has devoted a portion of his 
summer vacations for ten years past to the study of the different portions of 
the great Alleghany system which faces the Atlantic coast from Canada to 
Georgia. Several years ago he measured the highest peaks of the Adiron- 
dack, Green, and White Mountains, in the northern part of the chain, and 
more recently he has been at work on the southern portion of the system, 
which is found to possess the most elevated peaks of the whole Appalachian 
chain. 

By a private letter from Professor Guyot, we learn that during his last 
summer (1860) he has devoted two full months to further measurements in 
the south, in company with Messrs. Sandoz and Grand Pierre. The weather 
has been propitious, and he has accomplished much work, having measured 
between one hundred and fifty and two hundred points in addition to those 
which were previously determined. He has extended his investigations 
as far as Georgia, and has seen the extremity of the Blue Ridge and the 
Unaka. 

These measurements sufficiently indicate the grand traits of structure of 
that loftiest portion of the Appalachian system. It may be seen that the 
Roan and Grandfather mountains are the two great pillars on both sides 
of the Northgate to the high mountain region of North Carolina, which 
extend between the two chains of the Blue Ridge on the east and the Iron 
and Smoky and Unaka mountains on the west. That gate is almost closed 
by the Big Yellow mountain. The group of the Biack Mountain rises nearly 


GEOLOGY. 277 


isolated on one side in the interval between the two chains, touching by a 
corner the high Pinnacle of the Blue Ridge, and overtowering all the neigh- 
bering chains by a thousand feet. In the large and comparatively deep 
basin of the French Broad Valley, the Blue Ridge is considerably depressed, 
while the western chain preserves its increasing height. Beyond the French 
Broad rises the most massive cluster of highlands and cf mountain chains. 
Here the chain of the Great Smoky mountains, which extends from the 
deep cut of the French Broad at Paint Rock, to that, not less remarkable, of 
the Little Tennessee, is the master chain of that region, and of the whole 
Alleghany system. Though its highest summits are a few feet below the 
highest peaks of the Black Mountain, it presents on that extent of sixty-five 
miles a continuous series of high peaks, and an average elevation not to be 
found in any other district, and which give to it a greater importance in the 
geographical structure of that vast system of mountains. The gaps or 
depressions never fail below five thousand fect, except towards the south- 
west and beyond Forney Ridge, and the number of peaks, the altitude of 
which exceeds six thousand feet, is indeed very large. On the opposite side, 
to the southeast, the Bine Ridge also rises again to a considerable height, in 
the stately mountains of the Great Hogback and Whiteside, which nearly 
reach five thousand feet, and keeps on in a series of peaks scarcely less 
elevated far beyond the boundary of Georgia. 

Moreover, the interior, between the Smoky mountains and the Biue Ridge, 
is filled with chains which offer peaks higher still than the latter. The 
compact and intricated cluster of high mountains, which form the almost 
unknown wilderness covering the southern portion of Haywood and Jack- 
son Counties, is remarkable by its massiveness and the number of lofty 
peaks which are crowded within a comparatively narrow space.. The Cold 
Mountain chain, which constitutes one of its main axes, shows a long series 
of broad tops, nearly all of which exceed six thousand feet. Near the south 
end, but west of it, not far from the head-waters of the French Broad, the 
Pigeon, and the Tuckaseegee waters, Mount Hardy raises its dark and broad 
head to the height of 6133 feet. Still further northwest, the group culmi- 
nates in the Richland Balsam, 6425 feet, which divides the waters of the two 
main branches of Pigeon River and of the Caney fork of the Tuckaseegce. 
Amos Piott’s Balsam, in the midst of the great Balsam chain, which runs in 
a parallel direction between the two main chains, measures 6278 feet. Con- 
sidering, therefore, these great features of physical structure, and the consid- 
erable elevation of the valleys which form the base of these high chains, we 
may say that this vast cluster of highlands between the French Broad and 
the Tuckaseegee rivers is the culminating region of the great Appalachian 
system. 

New Map of the Alleghany System. — The measurements of Professor Guyot, 
just referred to, furnish important data for the correction as well as the 
completion of all existing maps of the regions which he has examined. 
These data, with the exception of those collected in the past summer, have 
been employed by Mr. Sandoz, a nephew of Professor Guyot, and an accom- 
plished draftsman, in the construction of a new map of the entire Alleghany 
chain, which has been published in the July number of Petermann’s Mit- 
theilungen. Mr. Sandoz has accompanied Mr. Guyot on many of his moun- 
tain expeditions, and took the results with him to Gotha, where the chart 
was drawn and engraved under the direction of Dr. Petermann. 

The scale of the map is 1:6,600,000. Two detailed subordinate maps are 

24 


278 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


printed on the same sheet with it, having a scale of 1: 600,000, one of which 
gives the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the other the Black Moun- 
tains of North Carolina, both according to Mr. Guyot’s measurements. — 
Silliman’s Journal, Nov. 1860. 


ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 


Atarecent meeting of the Philadelphia Academy, Mr. J. P. Lesley com- 
municated the result of some recent observations on the Geology of the 
White Mountains of New England. His examinations of these mountains 
had led to the conviction that the range would prove to be synclinal instead 
of anticlinal, and therefore probably of Devonian age. <A section which he 
made in 1857 along the Grand Trunk Railroad showed him the synclinal 
structure, with comparatively few dips, and at least two main anticlinal 
divisions. The profile in the Franconia notch is evidently a cliff outcrop of 
a horizontal plate. The newly opened Greely Mountain House in Water- 
ville, in a cul-de-sac valley at the head of Mad River, and six or eight miles 
in an east line through the woods from the Flume Honse, is surrounded by 
bold outcrops of nearly horizontal massive plates of granite. Ascending 
Mad River from Campton, the traveller has the White-face range on his 
right, with apparent gentle dips to the northwest. But on his left he has 
the Welsh mountain range and Mount Osceola, with an unmistakable and 
universal dip, never over fifteen degrees, and much of it under ten degrees, 
to the southeast, which can be studied for at Jeast seven miles, northeast 
and southeast. Turning to the left and ascending Mount Osceola (which 
Mr. Lesley found by barometer to be over 2600 above the Greely House, and 
therefore not much lower than Mount Lafayette), the bridle path mounts 
over successive outcrop edges of perfectly horizontal plates of granite, as 
evidently and regularly bedded as any of the sandstone masses of the Alle- 
ghanies, the bed planes not being at all disguised by the cleavage planes. 
Between these plates of granite lie plates of unchanged dark blue sandstone, 
—a rock which at the cascades (two miles from the house in another direc- 
tion) has been mistaken for greenstone trap. The successive terraces and 
cliffs of the mountain are evidently the consequences of this horizontal 
and alternate structure. As in other horizontal mountain plateaus, the 
terraces here are projected between the ravines in the form of noses, with — 
straight crests, and terraced or stepped at their ends. In fact, to a prac- 
tised topographical eye, the aspect of the whole White Mountain range is 
that of synclinal erosion. 

Other considerations reinforce this opinion. The continuation and broad- 
ening of the range northeastward through Maine and Lower Canada, where 
super-silurian rocks abound, —the termination of the range southeastward 
before reaching Massachusetts and Vermont, as the Alleghany synclinal 
stops at Catskill before crossing the Hudson, —the presence of horizontal 
rocks at Worcester, and, more generally than would be supposed, through 
middle New England, —the fact that the Connecticut valley runs everywhere 
under the western escarpment of the White Mountains, separating it from 
the silurian range of the Green Mountains, and the presence of Potsdam 
and other low formations in eastern Massachusetts, — all these facts would 
find their explanation in a synclinal terminal eroded structure of the White 
Mountain mass. 

The granite of Mount Osceola and the surrounding heights consists of 


GEOLOGY. 279 


_ large crystals of feldspar, smaller crystals of quartz, and smaller flakes of 
mica. Here and there hornblende appears. The rock bears no resemblance 
to the sub-silurian Highland and Blue Ridge range and Adirondacks. It is 
friable under the weather, shedding its crystals upon the ground under 
every overhanging ledge. The boulders are rounded by the weather action 
apparently more than by movement; for they have only travelled down the 
slopes beneath the cliffs from which they have fallen, and where those that 
remain are sharp-angled. The peculiar gravel and sand of the Mad River 
valley is a local drift of similar origin. The metamorphism of these granites 
is considered by Logan, Hunt, and others, as no longer disputable. They 
could easily originate in the clayey sandstones of Formations VIII., [X. and 
_X., of the Appalachians. 

Considering the whole White Mountain mass a synclinal plateau, then the 
summit of Mount Washington, which is such an acknowledged anomaly, 
becomes regularly the single residual fragment of the highest formation 
which escaped erosion. Its rock is so different in texture and structure 
from the rest of the mountains that no other explanation seems possible; 
and if this hypothesis be adopted, there is no longer any need of that which 
supposes the submergence of New England up to the base of the head of 
Mount Washington and no higher, leaving the head in the air to escape the 
general rounding and polishing action. It becomes easy to consider the 
external difference due rather to the difference of the rock formations above 
and below that horizon. 


THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. 


The brothers Schlagintweit, who have recently returned to Europe from 
an exploration of Thibet and Napaul, Asia, state that they succeeded in 
reaching the summit of Ibiganuri, one of the Himalaya Mountains, 22,260 
feet high, which is the greatest height ever attained on any mountain. The 
peak lately called Mt. Everest, of the Himalaya chain, is the highest moun- 
tain in the world at present known, being considerably over 29,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. The natives have two names for it—one of 
them, Gorishanta, which is mythological, is to be found only in the Nepaul- 
ese, and the second name, Chingofanmara, is that by which it is known 
among the people of Thibet. 


ON THE CONDITIONS OF SILICA AND THE FORMATION OF GRANITE. 


The following is an abstract of an important essay recently published in 
Poggendorf’s Annalen, which has excited no little attention among European 
scientists, as it tends to the denial of the prevailing theory of the igneous 
origin of granite. According ta M. Rose’s observations, there are two 
different states or conditions of silica, one having a specific gravity of 2.6, 
and the other varying from 2.2 to 2.3. The silica or silicic acid, with the 
density of 2.6, is only found in the erystailine form, or in a compact form 
more or less crystallized, while that with the lower specific gravity is always 
amorphous. The properties of the regularly crystallized and the compact 
crystalline forms are similar, and differ from those of the amorphous 
varieties. M. Rose observes, that no one can doubt that compact crystal- 
lized silica, such as is found in fire-stone, for example, has been formed ina 
indist way. In petrified wood we often find the vegetable structure accu- 


280 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


rately preserved, and Ehrenberg has detected infusoria in fire-stone with 
their forms uninjured. Powdered quartz, or fire-stone, resists the action of 
boiling hydrate of potash, or, after prolonged exposure, is only slightly 
dissolved, while amorphous silica is dissolved in considerable quantity. 
Experiments to produce crystallized silica have only succeeded when the 
humid method has been tried: among others, Daubrée produced well- 
formed crystals of quartz by decomposing glass by the action of water at 
a high temperature and under pressnre. But no one has obtained erystal- 
lized silica by the method of fusion, and quartz which has been melted has 
a specific gravity of 2.2. Davy, Clarke, Stromeyer, Marcet, and others 
fused quartz into a clear globule; and more recently, Gandin and St. Claire 
Deville have melted considerable quantities of quartz, which they formed 
into buttons and drew out in threads; but although the quartz had a 
specific gravity of 2.6 before fusion, after it, its density was reduced to 2.2. 
M. Rose observes, that it is not likely that the quartz of the granite crys- 
tallized during a slower cooling, or by the prolonged action of an elevated 
temperature, because, if such an action had taken place, it would have been 
irrerular in its operation, and where the cooling was accelerated we should 
expect to find silica with a density of 2.2, which, however, never ocenrs in 
any sort of granite. 

Different modifications of silica were exposed to an elevated temperature 
in a porcelain farnace at Berlin (estimated at two thousand Centigrade 
degrees) for eighteen hours, and then cooled very slowly. The specimens 
of silica were placed in platina crucibles, which were in turn placed in larger 
erucibles of the same metal, contact being prevented by the interposition 
of magnesia. A rock erystal thus treated was unchanged, except that some 
small fissures occurred in the side nearest the platina, and which was con- 
sequently cooled quickest. By exposing a second time some quartz crystals 
to the action of the furnace, the lower portions of which exhibited a few 
cracks, the latter were after exposure reducible to a granular state by the 
action of the fingers. The grains thus obtained were for the most part 
transparent and crystalline, but some of them were opalized and easily 
reducible to powder. The coarse powder had a specific gravity of 2.613, 
thus showing that some weight had been lost. The second portion of these 
crystals remained uninjured. Rock crystal, reduced te as fine a powder as 
possible, was then placed in a furnace, and its density was found to be 2.394. 
By a second exposure it was reduced to 2.329. Black fire-stone, with a 
density of 2.591, preserved its form after the action of the furnace, but those 
portions in contact with the platina were cracked, and the mass was ren- 
dered completely white and easily reducible to powder in a mortar. The 
specific gravity of the whole was 2.218, and of the powder 2.237. By these 
experiments it was shown that the prolonged action of a high temperature 
produced different results, according to the mechanical condition of the 
crystalline silica, and that a temperature insufficient for fusion enabled the 
crystalline silica to pass into the amorphous state. 

The modification of silica which has a density of 2.2 is obtained not only 
by fusion or heating the crystalline form, but when it is melted with alka- 
lies and precipitated in a gelatinous form. When the gelatinons silica is 
thorouchly dried, it becomes pulverulent with a density of 2.2 to 2.3. No 
rigorous line of demarcation can be drawn between the silicates which we 
sec in natrre, and which resist the action of acids, and these which are 
decoinposed by them. In fact, many of those which have been renged 


GEOLOGY. 281 


among the nondecomposed forms are, more or less, acted upon when they 
are reduced to a fine powder and exposed to a long digestion with concen- 
trated acids. But in the decomposition of silicates which acids attack with 
difficulty, silica is always precipitated in a pulverulent and not in a gelati- 
nous form. From the different states in which silica is separated by the 
action of acids, Bischoff considered that it exists in two isomeric conditions. 
To test this theory, M. Rose prepared pulverulent silica from stilbite, with 
the aid of concentrated hydrochloric acid, and found its density when dry 
at 150° was 2.145; after a little water left at this temperature was expelled 
by slight calcination, the density was 2.1897, and after half an hour’s expo- 
sure to a red heat, it was 2.206. Gelatinous silica was then obtained with 
hydrochloric acid from apophyllite, and possessed a specific gravity of 2.218, 
and, after calcination for half an hour near a reddish white heat, of 2.22. 
{t therefore appears that silica possesses the same density and the same 
properties in whichever condition it is separated from its combinations by 
acids. The envelops of infusoria are formed of amorphous silica, do not 
polarize light, and have, according to Schaffgotsch, a specific gravity of 2.2. 
Thus, while the silica resulting from inorganic changes effected in nature by 
the humid way is of a specific gravity of 2.6, the phenomena of organic 
life transform this into silica with a density of 2.2. 

The original paper further presents a mass of valuable detail which can- 
not here be reproduced, after which the writer applies his researches to the 
theory of the production of granite, and lays stress upon observations 
tending to show that the quartz was crystallized after the felspar and mica, 
whereas it would have been the first to crystallize if all had been fused 
tozcther, because it is the least fusible, and would solidify soonest. By 
melting granite, M. Rose obtained a black glass mingled with portions of 
silica. Various other reasons are given for reviving the Neptunian theory; 
and the writer concludes that it is possible that the constituent elements 
of granite may have been formed by the action of water on a mass origin- 
ally in fusion, and considers that the high temperature and circumstances 
under which the action took place would account for the absence of organic 
remains. It is obvious that this theory atfects not only granite, but porphy- 
ries and other supposed igneous rocks. M. Rose, however, admits that if 
any one should succeed in forming crystalline silica by fusion which should 
possess a density of 2.6, the principal objections against the igneous 
origin of granite would disappear. 


ON THE FORMATION OF MINERALS IN THE HUMID WAY. 


In a communication on the above subject recently made to the Boston 
Seciety of Natural History by Dr. C. T. Jackson, he remarked of chemical 
spring's, that they are gencrally found along the line of disruption of strata 
of rocks, and near the junction of-eruptive rocks with those of aqueous 
deposition. In the Vosges, it is at the line of contact of granite and the new 
red sandstone that the hot springs of Plombiéres are found. The waters of 
these springs have a temperature of seventy-three degrees Centigrade, or 
one hundred and sixty-three degrees Fahrenheit. These waters contain 
0.03 grammes of silicate of potash per litre. Ancient Roman baths were 
found at these springs, and the river had been turned out of its natural 
channel into an artificial one, in order to accommodate the construction of 
the baths. In these ancient works were found bronze stopcocks, in which 

2Q4* 


282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the bronze was changed into gray sulphuret of copper. In the bricks of tiie 
Roman works, numerous crystals of zeolite minerals were found, which 
had been formed in the cavities by the action of the mineral-waters; also 
small crystals of fluor spar. Among the minerals thus formed are Apophyi- 
lite, Chabasie, Chalcedony, Malachite, Haematite, Opal, Hyalite, Arragonite, 
Caleareous Spar, and a variety of other minerais. The alkaline mineral- 
waters acting on the components of the bricks and cement formed double 
silicates most readily. The Apophyllite was found in the cement, and not in 
the bricks, while Chabasie was found in the bricks. 

The conditions required for the formation of zeolite minerals are fulfilled 
most perfectly when trap rocks are thrown in a molten state into beds of 
new red sandstone strata. The humid sandstones and slates of that series 
are in the very condition required for the chemical combinations to take 
place, under the heat of the trap rocks and the infiuence of heated saline 
waters. Trap breccia is a mixture of scoriaceous trap rock and sandstone. 
Amygdaloid is the scoria produced by the interfusion of trap rocks and 
sandstone. Now, in Nova Scotia, all along the shores of the Bay of Fundy, 
we find in the utmost profusion the Zeolites, Quartz and Amethyst geodes, 
Apophyllite, Stilbite, Mesotype, Analcime, Agates, etc., in the Amygdaloid, 
but not in the compact trap rocks. Soon the south shore of Lake Superior, 
where the trap rocks have been erupted through and between the strata of 
1ew red sandstone, we find the Amygdaloid at the point of contact of the 
trap and the sandstone, and the Amygdaloid is filled with an abundance of 
Zeolite minerals, Agates, Chalcedony, etc., while the compact trap rocks are 
not charged with these minerals. Dr. Jackson therefore inferred that these 
minerals were produced in the Amygdaloid by agencies such as are cited by 
M. Daubrée. 

Sea-water undoubtedly played a conspicuous part in effecting changes in 
the composition of rocks, and in the formation of minerals contained in the 
metamorphoscd rocks; and it is probable, in accordance with the views of 
Forchamimez, Mitscherlich, Mavignac, Sénarmont, Favre, and Hunt, that the 
magnesia of the Dolomites came from the decomposition of the chloride of 
magnesium of sea-water,and that gypsum was also produced by the reac- 
tion of the suiphate of soda on carbonate of lime. Forchammer found 
that when sea-water was heated with bicarbonate of lime magnesia was 
precipitated, and the proportion augments at higher temperatures under 
pressure. He found also that gypsum was decomposed in fourteen days 
when in contact with carbonate of magnesia, and sulphate of magnesia and 
carbonate of lime resulted. Marignac found at two hundred degrees Centi- 
grade that chloride of magnesium and carbonate of lime, reacted on each 
other, and that double carbonate of magnesia resulted. Sénarmont made a 
similar experiment. Favre estimates that an ocean pressure of from five 
hundred to six hundred feet is adequate to effect these changes when the 
water is heated. 


ON THE ORIGIN OF CERTAIN ELONGATED,- FLATTENED, AND 
CURVED QUARTZ PEBBLES FROM THE CONGLOMERATE OF VER- 
MONT. 


At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, October, 1860, 
Professor Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst, made a communication on the 
conglomerate of Vermont, which contains elongated, flattened, and curved 


GEOLOGY. 283 


pebbles of quartzose nature, and sometimes of pure hyaline quartz. His 
observations had been made at Newport, R. L., where these distorted pebbles 
were first noticed, and at Wallingford and Piymouth, Vt., in the Green 
Mountains. He exhibited diagrams, showing the size, shape, and relation 
of these pebbles to the conglomerate enclosing them, and the gradual pas- 
sage of the rounded and water-worn masses into the folia of the schists. 
At Newport the greatest elongation is in the direction of the strike, but 
in Vermont in the direction of the dip; in Plymouth he had found the 
pebbles of one surface continuous with the schistose laminze of another. In 
some localities this quartzose conglomerate is intimately associated with 
eneiss, and seemingly a variety of it; he had no direct proof of this, but 
believed that there is a continuous series of changes from these quartzose 
elongated pebbles, throuzh the talcose and micaceous schists, to the gneiss, 
that are ail varieties of the same rock. The gneiss of the Green Mountains 
has these conglomerates and schists on the east and west sides, the former 
being the uppermost. He expressed an opinion that these pebbles have 
been bent since their deposition, and while they were in a plastic state; they 
are not only elongated, but indented and curved around each other in some 
localities; the simple curvature of the strata might explain the elongation 
in the line of strike, but not the other phenomena presented. Some of 
these pebbles in Vermont are pure quartz. To explain this he invoked 
the aid of chemistry, and the well-known action of hot water containing 
alkalies in solution in softening and decomposing silicates, exiracting 
some ingredients and combining others, the form of the rock remaining 
unchanged. 

Dr. Jackson thought that the smoothness and absence of indentation in 
these pebbles showed that no change had taken place in the forms since their 
deposition; they are perfectly polished, as in the stones rolled upon our 
shingle beaches by the powerful action of the surf. This constant grinding 
and rolling up and down by the force of the waves would produce various 
cylindrical forms, and even the crooked and distoried ones exhibited on the 
diagrams of Mr. Hitchcock; and similar shapes can be seen any day upon 
the present beaches. Beside, quariz pebbles could hardly have been sof ened 
by heat, and, if they were, would have taken different forms from these. 
The magnetic iron he considered the result of a metalliferous emanation, 
rising in vapor, as in almost every volcanic eruption, and requiring less than 
ared-heat. They were parallel to each other and to the line of the strata, 
because they were thus formed originally. In presence of sea-water, a 
moderate heat would be sufficient to cause the pebbles to be united by a 
cement of Wollastonite or silicate of lime. He was averse to any theory of 
their explanation which requires softening after their deposition. 

At asubsequent meeting of the Society, Professor Rogers, after referring 
to the character of the conglomerate as presented at Newport, R LI, called 
attention to the steep and alternating dips of the beds of conglomerate in 
question, and also to the general parallelism of the flat sides of the peb- 
bles to the planes of deposition, as well as the prevailing uniformity of the 

- direction of their longer axes. He urged that such an arrangement of the 
pebbles corresponds precisely with the effects of wave and current action 
on water-worn and partially water-borne fragments during their accumu- 
lation. The large proportion of pebbles of elongated shape met with in 
these peculiar beds, was, he considered, the natural consequence of the 
mode of disintegration of the original metamorphie rocks from which the 


284 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


pebbles were derived. Such rocks, in virtue of sharply-intersecting joints 
and cleavage planes, are prone in many localities to break up in long, 
irregular, somewhat rhombic figures, which, by the wearing action of 
streams and tides, are easily converted into oblong pebbles, like those of 
the Newport conglomerate. Examples of this mode of disintegration are 
common in the more altered belts of the Appalachian region, especially 
among the siliceous and argillaceous slates along its southeastern border, 
and may be seen at various points among the similar altered rocks of New 
Ingland. 

To the hypothesis of Prof. Hitchcock, that these elongated pebbles owe 
their peculiar shape and position to the action of powerful pressure upon 
the strata while the pebbles were in a soft condition, from intense heat or 
other causes, Prof. Rogers urged the following objections : 

1st. The effect of pressure upon a plastic solid, as shown by Tyndall and 
Sorby, is in all cases to develop more or less distinct cleavage planes 
throughout the mass; these planes being uniformly at right angles to the 
direction of the pressing force. Such an action applied on a large scale to 
the strata of conglomerate must, therefore, have had the effect not only of 
flattening the plastic pebbles in a uniform direction, but of developing a 
cleavage or lamination in them all, parallel to their flat sectioas as they lie 
in the mass. But this is so far from being the fact, that we find the cleavage 
planes of different pebbles running in wholly different directions, some- 
times across, sometimes parallel, and sometimes oblique, to the general 
bedding, just as might be expected from the preservation of the original 
cleavage-structure of the rock from which they were derived. 

2d. Such a moulding of the pebbles by pressure would either enormously 
distort or entirely obliterate any fossil forms or impressions which may 
“have existed upon or within the pebbles at the time of their deposit. But 
an inspection of the Lingule from the Taunton River conglomerate, and 
of a similar fossil found subsequently by Mr. Easton in the conglomerate of 
Newport, shows that no such violence could possibly have operated on the 
mass. 

3d. While in the localities referred to the majority of the pebbles have the 
oblong shape and parallel arrangement above described, there are many 
scattered through the mass which are either round or have their longer 
dimensions more or less transverse, or even perpendicular, to the general 
direction. As these could not have escaped the enormous, all-pervading 
softening action and pressure which the hypothesis assumes, their presence 
in these discordant conditions seems of itself a sufficient refutation of the 
theory. 

In regard to the curved form and close adaptation observed in some of 
the pebbles, Prof. Rogers thought that accidental peculiarities of shape in 
the original fragment, and the effects of attrition and the close packing of 
the accumulated deposit, furnished an adequate explanation both of the bent 
form sometimes met with, and the accurate fitting of the contiguous pebble 
to its concave surface. 


As an example of the formation of flattened pebbles by the action of the © 


shore waves, Prof. Rogers referred to paving stones of slaty trap, recently 
imported from Newfoundland, which are remarkable for their very uni- 
form circular outline, their smooth, slightly convex faces, and a thick- 
ness rarely exceeding one-third of their breadth. If we suppose a great 
miass of these as they lie piled along the shore, with their broad sides 


; 
; 
3 
( 
| 
q 
. 


GEOLOGY. 285 


horizontal, to be hereafter cemented together as a stratum of conglomerate 
rock, would not the argument founded on their shape and position be even 
stronger than in the case of the Newport conglomerate? Yet nothing is 
more certain than that they owe their shape and arrangement to the peculiar 
movement and attrition to which they have been subjected by the action 
of the waves. 

Thus, as regards the Newport rocks, and most other conglomerates which 
had fallen under his notice, Prof. Rogers saw no difficulty in referring the 
forin and arrangement of the pebbles to the familiar agencies above indi- 
eated. He did not, however, doubt that, in some highly metamorphic 
disiricts, conglomerate rocks were to be found which had sustained great 
internal changes through the effects of heat, chemical action, and violent 
pressure. Such he has long thought must have been the conditions in 
some parts of the Blue Ridge and South Mountain chain in the Middle 
States, and such, perhaps, were the influences which operated on the gneis- 
soid conglomerates of the Green Mountains, to which Prof. Hitchcock has 
referred in his communication to the Scciety. 


ON THE FORMATION OF TRAP DIKES. 


At the meeting of the American Association, 1860, Mr. J. D. Whitney 
read a paper, prepared by himself and Col. Foster, on the origin and strati- 
graphical relations of the trappean rocks of Lake Superior. It was a 
minute description and discussion of the traps found in the Lake Superior 
region, especially about the copper mines at Keweenaw Point, and pre- 
sented as many objections as possible to the theory, now pressed with much 
vigor, that trap is not of igneous origin. 

Prof. Agassiz quite concurred with the authors of the paper, that an 
examination of the shores of Lake Superior fully established the igneous 
origin of trap. The evidence of the heated mass upon the sandstone below 
was as plain as that of a hot poker upon wood. He thought that if the 
advocates of the aqueous origin of the trap would examine some of these 
places, they would be convinced that they were wrong. 

Prof. Wm. B. Rogers coincided in maintaining the igneous origin of trap, 
and adduced some instances supporting that theory. 

Prof. Agassiz said that he had observed the influence of the rocks upon 
the dikes, as well as the influence of the dikes upon the rocks. There was 
a very good instance of this at Nahant, where the influence of the rock in 
producing a slow cooling of the hornblende was seen in the very large 
crystals there found. 


ON THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH AT GREAT DEPTHS. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. W. 
B. Rogers remarked, that in reference to the increase of temperature at 
great depths, as a means of determining the thickness of the solid crust or 
shell of the globe, much uncertainty must attend such calcuiations until all 
the necessary data have been ascertained. It is not merely requisite to 
know the law according to which the tempcrature augments as we descend, 
and the ordinary melting point of the different rocky materials forming the 
crust, but we must ascertain liow and in what degree the melting point in 


286 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


each case is influenced by the pressure to which the heated mass is sub- 
jected. 

According to the experiments of Bunsen, Hopkins, and others, spermaceti, 
wax, and paraffine, when heated under powerful pressure, require a higher 
temperature for their liquefaction than is sufficient to melt them under 
ordinary circumstances, where the pressing force is only that of a single 
atmosphere. If, with Hopkins, we assume that the melting point of rocks 
is in like manner raised by the pressure under which they are placed beneath 
the surface, we must agree with him in the conclusion that the materials of 
the earth’s crust may retain their solid condition to a much greater depth 
than has been usually supposed. 

We have, however, no warrant for assuming that all, or even the great 
mass of rocky materials, obey the same law in regard to their liquefaction 
as wax and the other similar substances above named. It should be remem- 
bered that these latter belong to the class of substances which contract as 
they pass from the liquid to the solid form, while there is another class, 
typified by ice, in which the act of congelation is accompanied by more or 
less expansion. Now it has been proved experimentally by Thompson, 
that pressure, instead of raising, actually lowers the melting point of ice; 
and there is reason for regarding it as a general law, that all those bodies 
which expand in becoming solid are similarly affected by pressure, while 
the other bodies which, like wax, contract in congealing, have their melting 
point raised under the same circumstances. 

As yet we are too little acquainted with the habitudes of the various 
rocks in these respects to decide as to the extent to which the one or other 
of these opposite agencies of pressure upon the melting point may operate 
in the interior of the globe, or to form any valid conclusion as to their 
aggregate effect upon the computed thickness of the crust. 


THE COSO MINING REGION OF CALIFORNIA. 


A correspondent of the Alta California — Mr. Farley —thus describes the 
geological features of a new mining region in the southeastern part of Cali- 
fornia, known as the “ Coso Mining Region.” Its area is about eighty miles 
square. It has for natural boundaries the Sierra Nevada on the west, the 
lofty peaks of Owens’ Mountains on the north, and an extensive dry lagoon 
on the east: — 

Nature seems to have withheld from the Coso mining district all save 
mineral wealth that can render a country attractive to man. It is treeless, 
and, with the exception of boiling springs, waterless, and it is in rare in- 
stances that even a limited tract of land can be found susceptible of cultiva- 
tion. Birds are scarcely ever seen, and only deer are found in remote places, 
where scanty signs of vegetation exhibit themselves. Roaming over the 
country are a few scattered Indians (the Coso tribe), who, like those of 
Washoe, live on herbs, roots, and worms. They run swiftly away upon 
seeing the whites. They build huts of cane, and huddle together in the 
cailons, where they pass a wretched, lazy existence. 

About twenty miles to the southward of Silver Mountain, the party visited 
an active volcano, at some elevation above the surrounding country, and 
which threw out hot mud and steam. A curious feature about this was, 
that, at distances of three feet apart, there were holes, each of which vom- 
ited forth different colored mud, — some scarlet, others a bright yellow, and 


GEOLOGY. 287 


others as blue as indigo. This spurted out in thick, gluey consistency, ran 
slowly down the sides like lava, and cooled to a substance hard as rock. 
Not far from this mud volcano they visited an opening which emitted the 
most unbearable heat, as from an oven, and here the Indians had been 
accustomed to bring rabbits, lizards, and other game to be cooked, — nature 
furnishing the fuel and fire gratis. 

In another direction, they discovered a tremendous boiling spring, forty 
feet long by about twenty-five wide. This appeared to be of immense depth, 
and was heated to the boiling point, presenting, in fact, an enormous caldron 
of boiling water, bubbling and steaming exactly as a pot would do overa hot 
fire. The water, when cooled, had an intolerable taste of alum. The hissing 
and roaring of this boiler could be heard at a great distance. It is described 
as shaking the ground, and emitting a loud subterranean rumbling. All the 
country around for twenty miles seems to have been burnt up with a fierce 
heat. The ground is hot for a mile around the volcano, and the peaks of 
the hills are all heated. 

Mr. Farley had a narrow escape near one of the hot mud lakes. Not 
being aware of the treacherous nature of the ground, he turned his horse 
towards a green-looking place, where there appeared to be something like 
feed. He had advanced but a few yards when the crust upon which the 
horse trod began to break through, while the ground began to bend in and 
tremble, as in a morass or quaking bog. His horse reared, and when the 
rider attempted to turn him, he broke through, his feet entering into a hot 
substance below, which. stripped the hair and skin off the hind legs of the 
animal ina moment. It was with the utmost difficulty he was spurred to 
more solid ground, and the mud whieh was taken up was found to be too 
hot to hold in the hand for an instant. The country seems to be in a state 
of subterranean combustion. Where the hills have been broken down, or, 
in other words, where land slides have occurred, the precipices are white as 
drifted snow, as though immense lime-kilns had caved in. 


ON THE CHANGE OF CLIMATE IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE 
EARTH. 


The following is a resumé of a series of letters recently communicated 
to the London Atheneum, by Sir Henry James, Director-in-chief of the Ord- 
nance Survey of Great Britain, which, from novelty of the views expressed, 
and the high scientific position of the author, have attracted no little interest, 
and called forth considerable discussion : — 

No fact has been more clearly established by geological evidence than 
that in former periods of the earth’s history there have been great and 
extraordinary changes in the climates of its different regions. The fossil 
faunas and floras of the Arctic regions prove incontestably that in that 
portion of the earth the climate must at different periods have passed 
through every variety, from the tropical to the arctic; in this our own 
country we have the same conclusive evidences of similar changes; and 
evidence can be produced from every part of the earth, all proving the 
same great fact, that there has been everywhere a great change of climate. 

Various speculations have been advanced by geologists to account for so 
remarkable a fact, and attempts have been made to prove that in the subsi- 
dence of continents and the raising up of the bottoms of seas, and other 
great changes with which we are familiar, there might have formerly existed 


288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


such a distribution of the land and water as would account for the observed 
phenomena. Oihers again have supposed a higher temperature in all parts 
of the earth, derived from the central heat of the globe, and everywhere 
producing contemporaneous similar faunas and floras. 

Without here entering upon the discussion of these views, I believe there 
are few geologists or naturalists who accept these explanations of the causes 
of the changes in climate as in any degree satisfactory. I have constantly 
had this problem hefore me, deeming it to be one of the very highest inter- 
est in physical geology, and have Jong since arrived at the conclusion that 
there was no possible explanation of the phenomena without the supposition 
of a constant change in the position of the axis of the earth’s rotation; and 
I think there are other great facts in physical geology which cannot be 
explained under any other supposition. 

The question we have to consider is, whether there may not have been, 
during those vast periods of the earth’s history which geology unfolds to us, 
some causes in operation which may have produced the supposed changes 
in the position of the poles of the earth; and it appears to me that if we 
take for our guide the investigations of Newton upon the effects which a 
redundancy of matier on any point of the earth’s surface must necessarily 
produce, they will lead us to the conclusion that there must formerly have 
been changes in the position of the poles, with the consequent changes of 
climate on every part of the earth. 

I assume, as an admitted fact, that the mass of the earth was at first a 
fiuid mass, and that it is at present a fluid mass with a hardened crust, and 
that the present oblate form of the earth is due to its rotation on its axis; 
and that if we suppose any cause which would tend to produce a change in 
the position of the poles, the mass of the earth was at all times, and is still, 
free to assume the new form which its revolution on a new axis would tend 
to produce, but with certain changes in the hardened crust, to which I will not 
further allude than to say I refer to what is called “slaty cleavage,” which, 
passing through vast masses of rocks, which are spread over large areas, 
has split up the rocks into lamin as fine almost as the imaginary fluxional 
increments of the mathematician, and also to the vast number of “ faults” 
by which the rocks forming the crust of the earth are broken up, and to the 
undulations of the strata in nearly parallel folds over large areas. Every 
geometrician must see that this is precisely such a result as might be ex- 
pected under the supposition of a change in the position of the poles, with a 
corresponding change in the form of the earth. To take a simple illustra- 
tion: if we hold a thick book between the hands, and imagine the surface 
formed by the edges of the leaves to represent the surface of a homogeneous 
mass of rock, such as that out of which slates are formed, and we then 
depress one side of the book so as to make the surface slightly inclined to its 
original position, it will be seen that an almost infinitesimally small sliding 
movement is given to each leaf, and that this represents what must take 
place under the hypothesis in a homogeneous rock, and produce the “slaty 
cleavage.” If, again, we place a number of books side by side on the 
ground, and then push them on one side, it will be observed that each book 
will slide, to a certain extent, over the one beneath it, and that this disloca- 
tion will represent the “faults”? which occur through any compound scries 
of strata, such as the coal-measures, and it will be observed that the displace- 
ment is down the inclined plane, as is always observed in the “ fauits.”” The 
siraia in each case are supposed to have been originally horizontal. 


GEOLOGY. 289 


In the 66th Proposition of the 1st Section of the Principia, Theorem 26, 
Corollary 22, Newton says: “ But let there be added anywhere between the 
pole and the equator a heap of new matter, like a mountain, and this by its 
perpetual endeavor to recede from the centre of its motion will disturb the 
motion of the globe, and cause its poles to wander about its superficies, 
describing circles about themselves and their opposite points.’’— Motie’s 
Translation, 1729. 

We have no evidence that within the historic period there has been an 
elevation of any mountain mass of such a magnitude as could produce an 
appreciable change in the position of the poles or the equator, and no records 
of astronomical observations could, therefore, show any such changes as 
have been adverted to. But we have undoubted evidence that in the former 
periods of the earth’s history great mountain regions, such as the Andes, the 
Himalayas, and the Rocky Mountains, have been thrown up in well-defined 
successive geological epochs; and knowing how vastly greater these mountain 
masses must originally have been, from the great degradation to which in the 
lapse of ages they have been subjected, and before the degraded matter was 
spread out to fill up the inequalities of the surface of the earth, we can see 
a probable cause for a commencement of what Newton calls “‘ the evagation 
of the poles,” and also the cause of a change in their position being again 
and again produced, until even the arctic regions may have been brought 
from a tropical position to their present position. We can see also how 
under the hypothesis there would be a gradual progress of a peculiar climate, 
arctic, or temperate, or tropical, over the surface of the earth, giving facil- 
ities to the spreading of a similar flora or fauna under the necessary con- 
ditions of light and heat for their development. 

The solution of the difficult problem under consideration obviously turns 
upon the question of whether the geologist can show that such mountain 
masses may have been thrown up in former periods of the earth’s history as 
would produce an ‘‘evagation”’ of the poles. I think we can; and that the 
changes of climate, the spreading of similar floras and faunas, and the 
undulations and dislocations of the strata composing the crust of the earth, 
are the necessary corollaries. A great number of other secondary minor 
forces, such as the eruption of igneous matter in different parts of the world, 
have, as is well known, been in operation to produce local changes; but the 
evagation of the poles is, as I think, the only cause of those great, wide- 
spread changes which have been adverted to. 

The facts established by our geological investigations may be thus formu- 
lated : — 

1st. We have evidence of great changes of climate in several successive 
periods, but with this peculiarity, that whilst the climate of the earliest peri- 
ods was nearly uniform in all parts of the globe, this uniformity disappears 
in the more recent periods: the uniform character of the flora of the coai- 
measures is a proof of the one, and the very different character of the fiora 
and fauna of the arctic, temperate, and tropical zones, marks the great 
change which has taken place. 

Now these facts, if they stood alone, might be explained on the supposi- 
tion that, from any cause whatever, the axis of the earth was at one time 
perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, and that its inclination was changed 
at the intervals which the changes of climate indicate until the axis reached 
its present inclination of twenty-three degrees thirty minutes. 

With the axis perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, we should have at 


25 


290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


each pole a circular area of from eighty to ninety miles upon which the sun 
would never set, and a much larger area within which, at the midnight of a 
yery short night, there would always be the light and heat of summer twi- 
light; whilst in all other parts of the earth there would be equal day and 
night, and no distinction of summer or winter,—a condition obviously 
favorable to the production of a very uniform flora; whilst at each of the 
supposed intervals of change, the long, cold arctic winters of the present 
time would be gradually introduced, with a corresponding change in the 
different regions of the earth. 

2d. If these changes in the climate were the only facts to be accounted for, 
this supposed change in the direction of the axis of the earth would explain 
them, although we are unable to assign any cause for such a change. 

But we have also to account for the fact, that the now cold, barren arctic 
regions had at one time the flora of a temperate climate, as in earlier periods 
it had that of a tropical climate. Again, we have proof that here in Great 
Britain, where we enjoy a temperate climate, we at one time had an arctic 
climate, and at another and earlier period a tropical climate; we can also 
prove that in certain parts of the present tropical regions there was formerly 
a temperate climate. 

Now these facts cannot be explained on the first hypothesis; but they may 
be explained if we suppose that, instead of a simple change in the direction 
of the axis of the earth, the change was produced by the evagation of the 
poles —that is, that the north pole might at one time, forexample, have been 
in the position of the magnetic pole, and that it has successively occupied 
several other positions till it reached its present position — and by the inclina- 
tion of the axis being changed at each period. 

Under this hypothesis we could explain the uniformity of the climate in 
the first period, the diversity of climate in the different regions of the earth 
as at present, and also the diversity of climate in the same parts of the earth 
in the intermediate periods. 

3d. But if such changes have taken place in the position of the poles, and 
the earth has revolved in successive periods upon different axes, we ought to 
have evidence of great corresponding changes in the crust of the earth, 
arising from the movement of the protuberance of the equatorial regions 
into new positions corresponding to the movements of the poles. 

Now, this is precisely what we do observe; for the crust of the earth is 
thrown into undulations or corrugations in lines parallel to the movements 
of the equatorial regions; that is, in lines either parallel to a great circle, 
or in lines analogous to loxodromic lines, or in curves such as would be pro- 
duced if the poles travelled by a succession of movements along curved 
lines into their present positions. 

The corrugations of the surface of the earth have, in fact, an arrangement 
something like the engine-turned lines upon the back of a watch; and there 
are particular sets of these corrugations corresponding to the epochs of 
those great changes in climate and organic life which have been referred to. 
Thus, for example, we have in this country the strata thrown into systems of 
undulation, which extend from Cape Wrath to the Ise of Wight; the undu- 
lations of the older strata being in the north in lines which cross the meridian 
at an angle of about forty-five degrees from northeast to southwest (that is, 
at right angles to a line drawn in the direction of the magnetic pole), and in 
the south in undulations running nearly east and west. Humboldt, in his 
4essai sur le Gisement des Roches, page 57, says: “‘The lines of direction of 


GEOLOGY. 291 


the strata meet the meridians (when, forexample, they are for great distances 
directed north forty-five degrees east) like the elements of a loxodromic line 
without being parallel in space. The direction of the ancient strata (prim- 
itive and transition) is not a small local phenomenon; it is, on the contrary, 
a phenomenon independent of the direction of the secondary chains, their 
branchings, and the sinuosities of their valleys, ——a phenomenon the cause 
of which has acted uniformly for prodigious distances; as, for example, in 
the ancient continent between the parallels of forty-three and fifty-seven 
degrees north latitude, from the north of Scotland as far as the confines of 
Asia.” 

In the movements of the equatorial protuberance we have the only force 
adequate to produce such wide-spread effects as these, or the “‘ slaty cleavage” 
in the same direction as the lines of the corrugations, or the great systems 
of “faults” which cross them, or those great systems of “joints” by which 
all the rocks composing the crust of the earth are divided into rhomboids, 
which, to repeat my former simile, are like the interstices between the lines 
onawatch. The great changes in climate and in organic life which occurred 
at periods corresponding to periods of great disturbance in the strata of the 
earth, and the several systems of lines into which the undulations of the 
strata are thrown, are all co-related phenomena, and no theory will be satis- 
factory that does not embrace them all as resulting from one and the same 
cause. 

4th. We have now to consider whether the study of geology, which has 
brought to us the knowledge of these so remarkably co-related effects, does 
not also furnish us with data to enable us to trace the cause of them. I have 
already stated that we Jhave in the mountain masses, which have been 
upheaved at different periods and in different parts of the earth, a sufficient 
cause for producing that evagation of the poles which Newton, before any 
of these geological facts were known, has said would necessarily result from 
their upheaval, and the evagation of the poles would produce the observed 
phenomena to which I have referred. 

Since the commencement of my investigations on this subject, I have 
requested Captain Clarke, R. E., to be kind enough to undertake the mathe- 
matical investigation of this difficult problem, and the result he obtained 
leaves no doubt on my mind but that the evagation of the poles is the true 
cause of the change of climate, the corrugation of the surface of the earth, 
and the other phenomena adverted to. 

To these powerful opponents, Colonel James finally replies, stating in the 
commencement his position anew, as follows: I have said that the eleva- 
tion of mountain masses has produced an “ evagation of the poles,” which, 
as a consequence, has produced a change in the form of the earth, and cor- 
rugated and split up the strata composing its crust; and, further, that the 
extent of the evagation may have been such, that at one time the north 
pole may have been in such a position that the axis of the earth was per- 
pendicular to the plane of her orbit (which it would be if the pole was nearly 
in the same position as the magnetic pole); and that at successive epochs 
it has occupied other positions, till it reached its present position, and caused 
the change of climate which distinguishes each epoch. 

Putting the case in the most favorable form for producing the largest 
effect, and assuming that a mountain mass was equal to the rovoth part of 
the mass of the equatorial protuberance, the result would be the shift of the 
poles of the earth to the extent of one or two miles; and in the case I heve 


292 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


supposed, viz., that the earth is not a rigid body, the first day’s whirl would 
make the new position of the axis again a permanent position, — permanent, 
at least, until again disturbed by the upheaval of another mountain mass, 
capable of producing another change. I hope-I have correctly represented 
what Mr. Airy admits, and that we have now got the problem into a form 
which will enable us very readily to discuss it. 

And first, as to the magnitude of mountain masses as they now exist, I 
grant that there is no existing mass that can produce more than a scarcely 
appreciable change. But the present mountain masses represent but frag- 
ments of their former bulks. The great range of the Andes, with the whole 
continent of South America, is probably the most recently elevated moun- 
tain range upon the face of the earth; the whole has been raised to its 
present great height of about five miles within the most recent geological 
period, and the greater part of it has been raised several feet within our own 
time. And I know of no reason why it should not continue to rise until it 
reached a magnitude which would produce a sensible change in the position 
of the axis of the earth. But although it simplifies the conception of the 
problem to suppose the elevation of one mountain mass, we need not depend 
upon the elevation of one only for producing the effect; for if, with Sir C. 
Lyell, we suppose other configurations of the continents and seas, and that 
another great continent, with its mountain ranges, like the Himalayas, rose 
simultaneously with South America at the other side of the globe, whilst 
other lands in opposite directions are sinking, it is obvious that under this 
supposition the effect might be quadrupled. 

But, it may be asked, can this elevation of mountain masses be supposed 
to continue to proceed to an indefinite extent? Certainly not; their attaining 
a certain magnitude would lead to results which would rapidly produce the 
reduction of their bulk, if it did not sweep them away altogether. 

The great geological epochs of which we have been treating are separated 
by intervals of what may be called the periods of tranquil deposition of 
nearly horizontal strata, and those periods of disturbance during which the 
strata have been thrown into great systems of undulations, and whole 
races of animals and plants utterly and simultaneously annihilated over 
the whole world, and the climate changed for the succeeding period of tran- 
quillity. 

These tranquil periods have been of such long duration, that no geologist 
ventures to say what number of years they occupied: a period of millions 
of years ago is but as yesterday in geological chronology, and the vast 
periods of time required for mountains to attain a magnitude sufficient to 
disturb this state of tranquillity is necessary to, and consistent with, the 
hypothesis. 

We must not investigate this problem, therefore, under the supposition 
that vast mountain masses have suddenly made their appearance in any 
given positions. Their increase, as measured by the chronology of man, is 
so slow that we could not possibly expect that astronomical observation 
could detect the effect of the increase in their magnitude in disturbing the 
position of the axis of the earth. The effeet of this slow increase may, by a 
rough analogy, be compared with that which takes place when the base of a 
great iceberg is slowly dissolved, until eventually the whole mass gives a 
roll, and settles into a new position of equilibrium. 

Let us suppose that a mountain mass may possibly have attained to the 
reqyived magnitude to produce the change, and that at the evitical period or 


GEOLOGY. _. 296 


turning-point in its history the earth gives a sudden whirl, and assumes 
a new position. We must first endeavor to imagine what would be the 
effect upon the strata composing the crust of the earth consequent upon the 
movement of the protuberant equatorial mass; the strata would be thrown 
into undulations in quasi-loxodromic lines, such as have been described by 
Humboldt and others. 

And what we must next inquire would be the effect upon the great volume 
of water in the seas in which the strata were being deposited. The water 
would be thrown with irresistible violence upon the continents, whole races 
of animals and plants would be simultaneously destroyed, and the surface 
of the earth ground down by the water itself, and the forcing along of vast 
masses of detrital matter over it; and finally there would be such a change, 
be it small or great, in the position of the poles of the earth, and in the incli- 
nation of its axis, as would produce a change of climate in every part of the 
world, but more marked in the arctic and temperate regions than the tropi- 
cal. We have but to suppose this repeated again and again to account for 
all the observed phenomena. 

In weighing the probability of the truth of this theory, we must take 
into consideration the fact, that no other theory has been before advanced 
which would account for these so intimately correlated phenomena being 
produced by one and the same cause; and I still hope that some at least 
of my scientific friends will admit that I have given them in it a valuable 
“wrinkle.” 

In opposition to these views of Sir Henry James, Mr. Jukes, one of the 
directors of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, publishes the following 
communication in the Atheneum, under date of September 3d, 1860. He 
says:— 

In the first place, I would object that there is no proof that “‘ there has 
been everywhere a change of climate;”’ since the tropical and sub-tropical 
portions of the earth’s surface may have always had pretty much the same 
mean temperature which they have now, for everything we can show to the 
contrary. Ii is, indeed, almost certain that the arctic and-northern temperate 
regions were once warmer than they are now, and that warmer climate seems 
to have endured for all geological time until a very recent geological period. 
It is equally certain that large parts at least, if not the whole (there is some 
doubt as to that), of the northern temperate regions were, during that 
recent geological period, considerably colder than they are now. This colder 
climate seems, during that same period, to have prevailed as far south as 
Northern India, judging from the former greater extension of the glaciers of 
the Himalaya, as described by Dr. Hooker and others, though possibly that 
might admit of explanation on the supposition of greater moisture there, 
caused by the Bay of Bengal extending up the present valley of the Ganges. 
We have, however, no reason to look to any other spot on the globe than the 
present north pole as the centre of that cold climate during this glacial or 
pleistocene period. Neither has any one yet ventured to point to any other 
region of the globe as having been possibly its arctic region during any 
previous geological period, — basing his argument on the fossils of that 
region having a more arctic character than the contemporaneous fossils of 
surrounding countries. 

The change of climate seems, as far as we can judge, to have been a gen- 
eral change from an “‘insular”’ to a “‘ continental ” climate, or, in other words, 
a change from one where a milder temperature was more widely diffused over 

2o* 


294 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the globe, to one in which the local distribution of heat was more marked 
and the climate more “ excessive,’ the mean temperature of the polar regions 
becoming certainly less, and possibly that of the equatorial regions rather 
greater, than before. It is obvious that such a change is one that cannot be 
accounted for by any shifting of the earth’s axis. 

But even if we dismiss palzontologica!l arguments, and look solely to the 
form of the earth, it seems to me that we have good reason to doubt the pos- 
sibility of a change in the earth’s axis of rotation. Admitting the assump- 
tion adopted by Sir Henry, that the earth was at first a fluid mass, and 
afterwards a mass with a hardened crust, it follows that, if it rotated with 
the same velocity as now, the oblateness of its spheroid must have been 
originally as great as itis now. That oblateness may be conceived thus: If 
we imagine a perfect sphere to be described about the centre of the earth, with 
the distance from the centre to the poles as its radius, the surface of that 
sphere would coincide with the earth’s surface about the poles, but would 
sink regularly as we receded from them, until it reached a depth of about 
thirteen and a quarter miles at the equator. The earth must have had then, 
ab initio, a protuberant shell, gradually bulging beyond the form of a true 
sphere, till it reached to the extent of thirteen and a quarter miles, or nearly 
seventy thousand feet, about its equator. It is very difficult to see what 
force, internal or external, could haye given to a globe thus weighted and 
balanced all round such a permanent tilt as would cause it to spin on any 
other than its shortest diameter, or could so alter its form as to make any 
other diameter shorter than its original axis of rotation. The highest moun- 
tain in the world, Mount Everest, is only five and a half miles high, one- 
third of that height being a mere pinnacle. The table-land of Thibet, with 
the Kouenlun and Himalaya mountains, is certainly the largest projecting 
mass above the surface of the earth; but, its mean height cannot be greater 
than two and a half miles, and its greatest diameter is only some six or 
seven hundred iniles. I.s mass, therefore, can bear but a very small. propor- 
tion to the mass of the protuberant belt surrounding the earth in its latitude, 
and still less to the whole protuberant shell, and can, therefore, have but an 
equally slight influence in overcoming the effect of that shell in giving equi- 
librium to the earth’s motion. If the much greater irregularities in the 
earth’s surface, namely, those prominences which form the masses of dry 
Jand, and those hollows in which the ocean lies, be wholly within the pro- 
tuberant shell of the earth,—and I think that we can have no doubt that 
they are so, except in the immediate neighborhood of the poles, —and if 
these great irregularities balance each other, and the equilibrium of the earth 
be maintained, it appears to me that the addition or subtraction of a mere 
wrinkle such as the Alps, the Andes, or the Himalayas, could hardly have 
more than an infinitesimal effect on that equilibrium. But the nearer the 
irregularities are to the pole, the less would be their disturbing effect, so that 
high land or deep sea there (and the Arctic Sea, at all events, seems compar- 
atively shallow) would have less effect than in lower latitudes, while exactly 
as the latitude decreases the compensating protuberance increases. 

Sir Henry assumes that our present mountain chains were once much 
greater than they are now, because such vast masses of rock have been 
removed from above those of which the present mountains are composed. 
I fully agree with him in the vast amount of erosion and denudation that 
has taken place over all our mountain chains; but, then, I believe that ero- 
sion was caused by the wearing action of the sea as the mountains slowly 


GEOLOGY. 295 


rose through the destructive plane of the sea-level, both on their first emerg- 
ence and at subsequent periods, when, after depression, they have had again 
to rise through that level. However great may have been the removal of 
rock, therefore, from over what are now the crests of our mountains, it does 
not follow that the mountains were ever materially loftier than they are now. 
Not only were those vast sheets of rock removed by the action of the sea, but 
the gaps and passes that indent the summits of mountains, as well as many 
of the glens, ravines, and valleys that furrow their sides, were evidently com- 
menced by the same action, though I am quite willing to believe that atmos- 
pheric agency has deepened and widened, and sometimes produced, these to 
a much greater extent than is commonly supposed. 

We certainly could not have any example of the elevation of a mountain 
chain during historic times if, as I am fully convinced, any mountain chain 
requires, not thousands, but millions, and even hundreds of millions, of years 
for its elaboration. Sir C. Lyell has given us abundant proof that the two 
actions of elevation and denudation, by which mountain chains have been 
produced, are still going on with as much vigor and intensity as they ever 
were. 

Furthermore, I would observe that while admiring the ingenuity of Sir 
Henry’s application of the hypothesis he favors to the production of such 
structures as “faults”? and “ cleavage,” there does not appear to be the 
slightest necessity to evoke such a ‘‘deus ex machind”’ as a shift of the 
earth’s axis for the purpose, since they might all be caused by the local 
movements which now take place, and seem always to have been taking 
place, in different parts of the earth’s crust. 

Lastly, there is not any good evidence in favor of the supposition that 
periods of tranquil deposition and periods of disturbance were ever common 
to the whole globe. On the contrary, everything is in favor of the belief 
that, during all geological time, tranquillity and disturbance have always 
been simultaneous in different parts of the globe, just as they are now. 

That ‘“‘ whole races of animals and plants” have ever been “ utterly and 
entirely annihilated over the whole world,” is a gratuitous supposition taken 
up at one time by geologists from want of proper consideration of the facts 
of the case. They unconsciously assumed a continuity of succession in the 
deposition of the groups of strata which can never be proved, though, in 
many instances, it can be disproved by evidence independent of the fossils. 
I have often discussed this question with the late Edward Forbes and others, 
and have arrived with them at the firm conviction that the change in the forms 
of life inhabiting the globe may have always been as slow and gradual as 
it has been during the historic period. We know that some species have 
become extinct, not only for particular localities, but for the whole world, 
ever within the last few centuries. The introduction of new forms may have 
been just as gradual. The appearance of sudden changes in the fossils 
found in a vertical succession of beds is due to the fact of our having one 
group of beds deposited during the middle, or end perhaps, of one great 
geological period, resting directly on the undisturbed surfaces of another 
group of beds belonging to some anterior period; nothing having been 
deposited in that locality during the whole vast interval by which its lapse 
could be recognized. 

My friend Sir Henry refers the production of the corrugation of the strata, 
and that of the joints, faults, and cleavage, which traverse them, to the 
shifting of the protuberant mass of the globe, and says that that shifting is 


296 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


produced by the elevation of mountain chains. But, as a matter of fact, 
every mountain chain can be shown to be accompanied by corrugated strata 
and faults, and sometimes by cleavage, and even, perhaps, by systems of 
joints, in such a way as to show that all these structures were produced by 
the elevation of the mountain chain, or, rather, that that elevation and ail 
the other phenomena were the simultaneous results of the same disturbing 
action. The influence of this action may sometimes be traced to consider- 
able distances into the lower lands on each side of the mountain chain, gradu- 
ally fading away as we recede from it, so as to show that the mountain 
chain was raised over the line of greatest intensity and largest endurance of 
a comparatively widely spread disturbing force, Which, nevertheless, was 
limited to a certain part of the crust of the globe. 

It appears to me, then, that, to be strictly consistent, Sir Henry should 
refer the elevation of mountain chains themselves to the slow and gradual 
shifting of the earth’s axis and its protuberant equatorial mass; but then, in 
that case, where are we to seek for the cause of this shifting ? 

The views of Sir Henry James have also called forth the Astronomer Royal 
of Great Britain, Professor Airy, in an article, in which, while admitting the 
ace uracy of the principle invoked by Colonel James, he doubts the adequacy 
of the cause, in magnitude, to explain the supposed effect. Professor Hen- 
nesey, of Dublin, also publishes an article in which he supports the views of 
Professor Airy. 


ON THE GRADUAL PASSAGE OF THE DEVONIAN SYSTEM INTO THE 
CARBONIFEROUS. 


The following is an abstract of some remarks made before the Boston 
Society of Natural History, by Professor W. B. Rogers, on the occasion of 
the presentation of a paper by Mr. C. A. White, showing the gradual passage 
of a Devonian into a Carboniferous fauna, in the rocks of these two systems 
in the State of Iowa: — 

Professor Rogers considered such a gradational change, or such a mingling 
of races in successive formations, as but the natural result of the accumula- 
tion of the strata during a long period of comparative repose. He believed 
that the abrupt transitions so often observed in passing from one geological 
formation to another were not, as some maintain, an essential feature in the 
life-history of our earth, but were the memorials of the disturbing and 
destroying agencies to which its living races had been successively exposed. 
These hostile influences have at no time been of equal intensity over widely 
extended areas, but, varying from region to region, have in some places 
arrested only in part the stream of living descent; thus substituting for the 
abrupt transition which marks the successive faunz of one district the 
gentle gradations and intermingling of forms presented by the correspond- 
ing deposits of another. 

teferring even to the limits of the great paleozoic divisions, so often 
defined by sharp lines of separation, observation has shown that in some 
localities the transition is so gradual as to present no greater amount of 
change in fossil forms than occurs in passing from one subordinate forma- 
tion to the next. Hence we find that the ablest European geologists are not 
agreed as to the line of separation between the Silurian and Devonian, or 
between the latter and the Carboniferous deposits of some of their best- 
known districts; while recent observations in this country and abroad have 


GEOLOGY. 297 


tended to obliterate the presumed line of demarcation between the Carbon- 
iferous and overlying Permian strata, wherever the transition beds are most 
completely developed. 

As regards the passage from the Devonian to the Carboniferous series, 
Professor Rogers remarked that the observations of Mr. White on the Bur- 
lington strata had their counterpart in those of Griffith, Jukes, McCoy, and 
other Irish geologists, who have been led to include in the lower Carbon- 
iferous series of Ireland a thick group of deposits which Murchison and 
others place inthe Devonian. Indeed, according to McCoy’s determinations, 
the Carboniferous limestone of Ireland contains among its fossils quite a 
number of forms identical with those of the Devonian rocks, as well as 
many that belong also to the Upper Silurian. 

These facts and considerations lend support to the view that the changes 
of fossil faunz are more gradual in proportion to the degree in which the 
successive deposits of a given period have been preserved from destruction, 
and certainly favor the doctrine of a gradational continuity in the succession 
of living races rather than that of sudden underived creations. 

Looking to the question of the equivalency in time of the rocks described 
in Mr. White’s paper with deposits in the eastern and southeastern parts of 
the Appalachian basin, we are struck with the enormous thickness of the 
several groups of strata in the latter region, which find a representation, as to 
period, in the inconsiderable mass of calcareous and other beds, occupying, in 
this western locality, the interval between rocks of unequivocally Devonian 
and Carboniferous ages. In this part of the Appalachian area, the interval 
-referred to includes not only the vast thickness of red and variegated strata 
of the Ponent or Catskill series, but-in Pennsylvania and Virginia a great 
mass of conglomerate, sandstone, and shale, containing in some districts 
considerable seams of coal, the whole attaining in places an aggregate thick- 
ness of more than six thousand feet. This latter, or Vespertine series, 
maintaining a position always below the shales and limestones charged 
with Archimedes (Fenestella) Pentremites, and other carboniferous limestone 
fossils, and forming a lower carboniferous group corresponding to that of 
Scotland and_Nova Scotia, may perhaps claim a place on the same time- 
level with the portion of the Burlington group in which the carboniferous 
forms have assumed predominance, or may extend in period as far as the 
lower Archimedes or Keokuk limestone. 

But all such attempts at synchronizing distant deposits must be limited to 
a general and vague result. Even when corresponding fossils would seem 
to mark a simultaneous origin, we must not forget the large agency of 
migration, and the long lapse of years which in many cases may have been 
required for the extension of a living race into distant submarine settle- 
ments. 


ON THE SYNCHRONISM OF THE COAL-BEDS OF NEW ENGLAND 
AND THE WESTERN STATES. 


The following paper was read at the American Association, 1860, by 
Professor C. H. Hitchcock, of Amherst, Mass. : — 

A few years ago, no one thought it possible to identify any particular bed, 
or series of beds, of coal in the carboniferous system by means of peculiar or 
characteristic fossils. But now, thanks to several observers and collectors, 
chief of whom is Leo Lesquereux, of Columbus, Ohio, most of the beds of 


298 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


coal have been found to be distinguished from one another by the peculiar 
forms of vegetation associated with them. Each series of beds has asso- 
ciated with it either characteristic species of plants, or, more usually, differ- 
ent species, common to several series of beds, but grouped together in a 
peculiar way. 

In the Appalachian and the Western coal-fields the synchronism of the 
different beds has been largely ascertained, and the equivalency is satis- 
factory. 

The equivalency of the New England beds of coal with the others has 
never till now been ascertained. We have made collections of plants from 
several localities in the New England basin, and Mr. Lesquereux finds that 
their distribution corresponds to that of the beds in the other basins. The 
localities examined are in Wrentham, Mass., Valley Falls, Portsmouth, and 
Newport, R. I. 

From Wrentham the following species were obtained: Asterophyllites lan- 
ceolata, Lesqx., A equisetiformis, Brgt., Annularia longifolia, Brgt., Spheno- 
phyllum Schlotheimii, Brgt., Calamites Suckowii, Brgt., C. Cistit, Brgt., Neu- 
ropterts flexuosa, Brgt., N. hirsuta, Lesqr., N. Loschiit, Brgt., Alethopteris 
Pennsylvanica, Lesqx., A. nervosa, Gopp., Pecopteris Mitoni, Brgt., P. arbo- 
rescens, Brgt., Sphenopteris abbreviata, Lesqr., Lepidophyllum, nov. sp., Trigo- 
nocarpum, nov. sp. Lesquereux says of the locality of these plants: “The 
exact geological horizon of the shaies where these species of fossil plants 
have been collected is obvious, not only from the species themselves, but 
also from their relation in number to each other. It corresponds with the 
shales covering over No.3 coal of the Western sections of the coal measures, 
equivalent of coal D. (Lower Freeport) of J. P. Lesley’s ‘Manual of Coal.’ 

“*The exact counterpart of your shales (or exact likeness) is found espe- 
cialiy at both the Salem beds of Pottsville, at W. W. Wood, Port Carbon, 
and many other places of the anthracite basins of Pennsylvania; and in the 
Western coal measures, in Kentucky, along the Tug river (separating Ken- 
tucky from Virginia), in Greenup, Lawrence, Breathitt counties, etc. In the 
Western coal-fields of Kentucky and of [llinois, this bed is frequently found 
with the same fossils, and it is one of the best and most reliable for its coal. 
In the East, this bed is generally separated into two or three different beds 
by clay partings of various thicknesses, each bed of clay containing the 
same or nearly the same plants. It often runs to No. 4, from which in the 
Western coal-flelds it is Ake by a limestone, and to which it is related 
by its vegetation, or the ferns.’ 

These shales in Wrentham lie above a bed of coal which has been worked, 
at least a hundred feet; and probably the bed which was worked in Mans- 
field and other adjacent towns is at the same geological horizon. The plants 
from these beds were not examined, but the probability is, as suggested by 
Lesquereux before he knew of its relative position, that this workable bed is 
the equivalent of No. 1 B, the big or mammoth coal bed of the East. This 
is confirmed by the early discovery of stigmarix at the lower Wrentham 
bed, and in Mansfield. 

The general position of the Valley Falls bed is the same with that just 
described. We did not obtain a sufficient number of plants from its shales 
to authorize a certain conclusion from them. 

We have made a careful examination of the island of Rhode Island, par- 
ticularly its southern part, and the following is the order of strata, com- 
mencing at the base of the carboniferous system and proceeding upwards: 


GEOLOGY. 299 


Coarse conglomerate containing elongated pebbles, 500 feet; slates, shales, 
etc., 470 feet; conglomerate, 464 feet; measures concealed, 920 feet. Just 
above these concealed measures we collected specimens of Pecopoteris affinis, 
Brgt. (never before found in America), P. arborescens, Brgt., P. unita, Brgt., 
Asterophyllites sublaevis, Lesqr., Annularia sphenophylloides, Brgt., Aphlebia, 
nov. sp., Sphenophyllum emarginatum, Brgt., 8. Schlotheimii, Sternb., Sphenop- 
teris, nov. sp., and Annularia fertilis, Sternd. 

Passing over about 250 feet thickness of slate, sandstones, and conglome- 
rates, we next come to shales associated with numerous small beds of anthra- 
cite, and containing Pecopteris nervosa, Brgt. Seventy-five feet higher in the 
series are twenty-five feet thickness of carboniferous shales containing the 
Alethopteris Pluckneti, Brgt., and Neuropteris tenuifolia, Brgt. The most pro- 
ductive bed of plants is two feet thick, and is seventy feet higher yet. It 
contains Asterophyllites sublaevis, Lesqx., Pecopteris arborescens, Brgt., Annularia 
fertilis, Sternb., Neuropteris, nov. sp., allied to N. Grangeri, Brgt., Lepidoden- 
dron, Pecopteris unita, Brgt., P. dentata, Brgt., P. cyathea (?), Brgt., Sphenop- 
teris elegans, Brgt., Annularia sphenophylloides, Brgt., Sphenophyllum Schlotheimii, 
Sternb., Cyclopteris, nov. sp., Lepidodendron dichotomum, Sternb., Sphenopteris 
intermedia, Lesqx., Pecopteris arguta, Brgt., P. oreopteridius, Brgt., and two 
indeterminable species of Pecopteris. This latter group corresponds to the 
plants found at the South Salem beds of Pottsville, or the upper part of 
No. 3 coal. The Wrentham specimens in distinction from them are from 
the North Salem bed at Pottsville, or the lower part of No. 3 coal. 

The next five hundred feet of coal measures are mostly concealed by soil. 
A few seams of coal have been discovered in them, which may correspond 
with coal No. 4, as it overlies the plants of No.3 coal. A few species of 
plants, which are not distinctive, have been found at the top of these five 
hundred feet of strata, immediately underlying a conglomerate of fifty feet 
or more thickness, whose positions correspond stratigraphically with the 
the Mahoning sandstone of the West. Above this conglomerate there are 
1,320 feet thickness of coal measures in the town of Newport, in which no 
seams of coal have ever been discovered. This may be due to the fact of the 
complete alteration of these measures by metamorphic agency into silicious 
slate, jasper, chert, serpentine, dolomite, and granite. The dolomite is in 
two beds, one forty-five and the other sixty-five feet wide. The total thick- 
ness of the whole system at Newport is 6497 feet. 

In the north part of Portsmouth are the only beds of coal that are worked 
upon the whole basin, —at the Aquidneck mine. In the vicinity of this 
mine there are eleven different beds of coal. Above the beds worked for coal 
three seams of coal have been found, and there are six below. From the 
shale at the mine the following species of plants have been obtained: Annu- 
laria fertilis, Sternb., Odontopteris Beardii, Brgt., Neuropteris, nov. sp., related 
to NV. Grangeri, Brgt., Pecopteris arborescens, Brgt., Sphenopteris Gravenhorstii, 
Brgt., and several others, not yet examined by Lesquereux. These are the 
plants peculiar to the Lower or North Salem bed at Pottsville. 

Thus all the beds of coal and shales containing plants which we haye 
examined in the New England coal basin belong to the lower coals, and also 
to the lower parts of the lower coals, since they all lie below the Mahoning 
sandstone. Beds of coal (perhaps series of small beds) are found, equivalent 
to the Pomeroy, South Salem, North Salem, and Mammoth beds, in other 
coal basins. We think it doubtful whether the beds of the upper coal meas- 
ures of other basins are to be found in the New England coal field, partly 


300 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


from metamorphism, partly from denudation, or perhaps they may never 
have been deposited. 

Mr. Lesquereux compares the New England basin with the others as 
follows: “ From your very interesting section of Aquidneck Island, it appears 
that near or at the western limits of the coal fields of North America the 
multiplication of conglomerate strata analogous to that which is found in 
Novg Scotia is already evident. Thus vour coal fields of Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island look as forming a link of transition between the coal basin of 
the Great Appalachian and Western region, and that of Nova Scotia. Indeed, 
the difference is easily marked and understood. To the eastward, the sand- 
stones, conglomerates, or shore materials, predominate; to the westward, on 
the contrary, the limestone and marine formation becomes more marked. 
It is the only difference.” 


ON THE GEOLOGY OF NEBRASKA. 


At a recent meeting of the American Philosophical Society, Professor 
Leidy gave the following account of the geology of the Territory of Ne- 
braska : — 

This great territory, embracing upwards of one hundred and thirty thou- 
sand square miles, is composed of formations of the cretaceous and later 
tertiary periods, with here and there a protrusion of metamorphic rocks. 
Watered by the many western tributaries of the Missouri, almost all of these, 
so far as they have been explored, bave yielded large numbers of species of 
extinct organic forms, vegetable and animal. 

From the Mauvaises Terres of White river, a miocene tertiary fresh-water 
formation, apparently a lacustrine deposit, an immense quantity of fossil 
bones of extinct mammals and turtles have been collected. In collections 
made by gentlemen of the Fur Company, by Jesuit missionaries, by Dr. Hay- 
den, and in others obtained under the auspices of the government, the Smith- 
sonian Institution, and Professor James Hall, altogether forming from six to 
eizht thousand pounds of fossils, submitted to Dr. Leidy’s inspection, he had 
detected the remains of thirty extinct mammals, and one turtle. Of these 
there are ten species of the extinct genera of ruminants, Oreodon, Agrio- 
charus, Poebro-therium, Dorca-thertum, Leptauchenia, and Protomeryz; eight 
species of pachyderms of the genera Hyopotamus, Elotherium, Titanotherium, 
Paleochoerus, Leptocherus, Hyracodon, and Rhinoceros ; of solipeds, a species 
of Anchitherium; of rodents, four species of the genera Chalicomys, Ischy- 
romys, Palcolagus, and Humys; of carnivora, seven species of the genera 
fHyanodon, Amphicyon, Drepanodon,! and Deinictis ; and the turtle forms the 
extinct genus Stylemys. 

From a later tertiary formation than the one just indicated, and suspected 
to be of pleiocene age, on the Neobrara river, explored in the recent expe- 
dition of Lieutenant G. K. Warren to Nebraska, Dr. Hayden, geologist to 
the expedition, collected a large quantity of fossil bones. These are of 


1 The name Drepanodon was applied by Nesti, as early as 1826, to the sabre-toothed 
tiger, for which, subsequently, a number of other names have been employed, that 
of Machairodus of Kamp being the most familiar. The author of the above remarks 
applied the name Drepanodon, in 1856, to an extinct reptile or fish, a tooth of which 
was discovered by Professor E. Emmons, at Cape Fear, N.C. The author would 
now substitute the name Lesticodus impar, Leidy, for the animal. 


GEOLOGY. 501i 


especial interest as indicating a fauna more nearly allied to the existing fauna 
of Asia and Africa than to our own. In the collection submitted to the 
examination of Dr. Leidy, he detected the remains of twenty-nine mammals 
and one turtle. Of these there are ten species of ruminants of the genera Cer- 
vus, Merycodus, Procamelus, Megalomeryx, Merycocherus, and Merychyus ; 
three pachyderms of the genera Rhinoceros, Mastodon, and Elephas; of soli- 
peds, eight species of the genera Equus, Hipparion, Proiohippus, Hypohippus, 
ional and Merychippus ; of rodents, two species of the genera Hystrix 
and Custor ; of carnivora, six species of the genera Canis, Felis, and Aeluro- 
don; and the turtle appears to be a species of Stylemys. 

From the greensand formation of the cretaceous period, through which 
course the Missouri and its tributaries, the Grand, Moreau, and Cheyenne 
rivers, with a part of White river, the remains of numerous species of mol- 
lusecs have been obtained. From this formation it was that Maximilian, 
Prince of Neuwied, obtained the skull and vertebral column of Mososaurus 
Missourtensis, described by Dr. Goldfusz, and now preserved in the Museum 
of Bonn. Teeth of sharks and remains of sphyraenoid fishes have also been 
discovered in the same formation. 


ON THE DRIFT OF THE TRIASSIC EPOCH. 


The following is an abstract of a paper read before the British Association, 
1860, by Mr. C. Moore, which attracted no little attention : — 

The author stated that several years ago he suspected the existence of 
triassic rocks in the neighborhood of Frome (England), from accidentally 
finding a single block of stone on a road-side heap of carboniferous lime- 
stone, containing fish remains of a former age, but that for a long time he 
was unable to discover it in situ. More recently, when examining some 
carboniferous limestone quarries near ihe above town, he observed certain 
fissures which had subsequently been filled up with a drift of a later age. 
One of these was about a foot in breadth at the top, but increased to fifteen 
feet in breadth at the base of the quarry, thirty feet below, at which point 
teeth and bones of triassic reptiles and fishes were found. Usually these 
infillings consisted of a material as dense as the limestone itself, and from 
which any organic remains could only be extracted with difficulty. In an- 
other part of the section he was fortunate enough to find a deposit consisting 
of a coarse, friable sand, containing similar remains. In order that this 
might receive a more careful examination than could be given to it on the 
spot, the whole of it, consisting of about three tons weight, was carted away 
to the residence of the author, at Bath, a distance of twenty miles, all of 
which had passed under his observation, with the following result: The fish 
remains, which were the most abundant, were first noticed. Some idea might 
be formed of their numbers when he stated that of the genus Acrodus alone, 
including two species, he had extracted forty-five thousand teeth from the 
three square yards of earth under notice, and that they were even more 
numerous than these numbers indicated, since he rejected all but the most 
perfect examples. Teeth of the Sauricthys of several species were also 
abundant; and, next to them, teeth of the Hybodus, with occasional spines of 
the latter genus. Scales of the Gyrolepsis and Lepidotus were also numerous, 
and teeth showing the presence of several other genera of fishes. With the 
above were found a number of curious bodies, each of which was surmounied 
by a depressed, cnamclied, thorn-like spine or tooth, in some cases with 

26 


302 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


points as sharp as that of a coarse needle; these the author supposed to be 
spinous scales belonging to several new species of fish, allied to the Squa- 
loraia, and that to the same genus were to be referred a number of hair-like 
spines with flattened fluted sides found in the same deposit. There were also 
present specimens hitherto supposed to be teeth, and for which Agassiz had 
created the genus Ctenoptychius, but which he was rather disposed to con- 
sider, like those previously referred to, to be the outer scales of a fish allied 
to the squaloraia. It was remarked that, as the drift must have been trans- 
ported from some distance, delicate organisms could scarcely have been 
expected; but, notwithstanding, it contained some most minute fish-jaws 
and palates, of which the author had, either perfect or otherwise, one hun- 
dred and thirty examples. These were from a quarter to the eighth of an 
inch in length, and within this small compass he possessed specimens with 
from thirty to forty teeth; and in one palate he had succeeded in reckoning 
as many as seventy-four teeth in position, and there were spaces where six- 
teen more had disappeared; so that, in this tiny specimen, there were ninety 
teeth. Of the order reptilia there were probably eight or nine genera, con- 
sisting of detached teeth, scales, vertebrze and ribs, and articulated bones. 
Amongst these he had found the flat crushing teeth of the Placodus, a dis- 
covery of interest, for hitherto this reptile had only been found in the mus- 
chelkalk of Germany,—a zone of rocks hitherto wanting in Great Britain, 
but which in its fauna was represented by the above reptile. But by far the 
most important remains in the deposit were indications of the existence of 
triassic mammalia. Two little teeth of the Microlestes had some years 
before been found in Germany, and were the only traces of this high order 
in beds older than the Stonesfield slate. The author’s minute researches had 
brought to light fifteen molar tecth, either identical with, or allied to, the 
Microlestes, and also five incisor teeth, evidently belonging to more than one 
species. A very small double-fanged tooth, not unlike the oOlitic Spalacothe- 
rium, proved the presence of another genus, and a fragment of a tooth, con- 
sisting of a single fang, with a small portion of the crown attached, a third 
genus, larger in size than the Microlestes. Three vertebrz, belonging to an 
animal smaller than any existing mammal, had also been found. The author 
inferred that if twenty-five teeth and vertebrx, belonging to three or four 
genera of mammalia, were to be found within the space occupied by three 
square yards of earth, that portion of the globe which was then dry land, 
and from whence the material was in part derived, was probably inhabited 
at this early period of its history by many genera of mammalia, and would 
serve to encourage a hope that this family might yet be found in beds of 
even a more remote age. 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACCUMULATION AND DEPOSITION OF 
SEDIMENTARY MATTER. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor 
W. B. Rogers exhibited a fossil cast in sandstone of part of the trunk of a 
large Sigillaria, from the South Joggins, in Nova Scotia, where, as first shown 
by Logan and Dawson, these and other stems belonging to the carboniierous 
age occur at numerous levels in the strata, and are to be seen standing in the 
erect position in which they grew. 

In considering the process by which these stems were originally enveloped 
by the mass of sediment now enclosing them, in the shape of sandstone and 


GEOLOGY. 803 


shale, an inquiry of much interest is suggested as to the rate of accumula- 
tion of the deposit in which they are buried. Many of these erect trunks 
are of very considerabie height, and one is mentioned by Sir Charles Lyell as 
traceable vertically across the strata for a distance of twenty-five feet. In 
all such cases the decay of the tree could have made no great progress before 
the trunk became buried to the whole observed depth, otherwise it would 
have become too weak to maintain an erect position, and must have fallen 
over. We infer, therefore, that the mass of sediment, even to the height of 
twenty-five feet, in the case above cited, must have been accumulated around 
the stem in a period extending at farthest only to the earlier stages of 
change in the organic structure. Moreover, this conclusion is strongly con- 
firmed by the fact that the peculiar markings of the outer wood, and even 
of the bark, are often found impressed so distinctly on these erect sandstone 
casts as to afford a means of discriminating the character of the plant. 

It seems, therefore, undeniable that in these cases the mass of sediment, 
amounting sometimes to twenty-five feet, was accumulated around the stand- 
ing tree in a very short time, a mere moment as compared with the units 
according to which geologists are accustomed to reckon the growth of such 
deposits, in the usual way of sedimentary accumulation. Yet a little con- 
sideration will show that facts of this kind furnish no support to the opinion 
of those whose imperfect acquaintance with geological data has led them to 
deny the necessity of prolonged cycles of formative action in the production 
of the great systems of sedimentary strata. 

In explaining the rapid entombment of the trees in their vertical position, 
it should be borne in mind that there are two processes very distinct from 
each other by which sediment may be accumulated over a given area. One 
of these is the series of actions by which the materials of preéxisting rocks, 
worn down and diffused by tides and currents, are deposited more or less 
equally over wide regions, so as to build up, step by step, a newer system of 
formations. The other consists in the transfer of sediment already accu- 
mulated from one part of the bed of the sea or estuary to a neighboring one. 
In the former process it would seem clear, from all the geological data, that 
vast periods of time must have been consumed. The latter, being nothing 
more than the sweeping of soft sand and mud from one submerged area to 
another in its vicinity, would require no other agency than some unusual 
local disturbance of the waters, such as might result from earthquakes or 
great inundations, and would demand but a short time for its completion. 
In this view, the thick mass of sandstone and shale enclosing the erect trunk 
of the fossil tree, although accumulated at this particular part of the carbon- 
iferous area in a very short time, is not to be regarded as simply the product 
and measure of this brief geological moment. Considered in relation to its 
previous history in the carboniferous period, it rather represents the com- 
paratively long series of combined actions which brought its materials into 
suspension in the waters, and gradually deposited them over the area, from 
which they were afterward so rapidly removed. 

In framing any conjecture as to the length of time corresponding to the 
formation of a group of strata at any particular locality, as the Joggins, we 
would, of course, ascribe but a small value in years to such masses of deposit 
as thus prove themselves to have been hastily accumulated at the spot where 
they are found. But, on the other hand, we should be careful not to apply 
the same measure of rapid accretion to those associated beds of shale, lime- 
stone, coal, and even sandsione, which give intrinsic evidence of having been 


304 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


tranquilly and slowly deposited. We should also keep in view the important 
fact, that while one part of the column of strata whose chronology we are 
studying has been thus rapidly built up by the materials swept into it from a 
neighboring quarter, other parts of the same column have been reduced in 
thickness, or even wholly removed, by similar local actions in the opposite 
direction; and that therefore the strata as they stand give us the measure of 
a time much less than that in which, as a group, they were actually deposited. 


GEOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 


Tin Ore in California.— Dr. C: T. Jackson, of Boston, in a note to the 
editor of the Mining Journal, says :— 

“In July, 1859, I received among a lot of ores, brought me under the suppo- 
sition that they were of silver, a very rich tin ore, containing sixty and a half 
per cent of metallic tin in the state of oxide of tin, mostly amorphous, and 
mixed with brown oxide of iron. It is a curious ore, and would, were it not 
for its great density, be mistaken for an ore of iron. It was found near 
Los Angelos, California. The vein is said to be six or eight feet wide. This 
I think must be an exaggeration; but it is certainly eight inches wide, as 
shown by the size of the specimens sent to the Revere Copper Company, in 
Boston, most of which Mr. Alger obtained for his cabinet, and for the manu- 
facture of some samples of metallic tin, which he has smelted and refined at 
a brass-foundery, and got forty per cent of refined tin.’”’ We understand that 
parties have gone to California to make arrangements for opening and work- 
ing this vein. ; 

New Mineral containing Boracic Acid. — At a recent meeting of the Boston 
Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. Hayes exhibited a very fusible white 
mineral from Lake Superior, containing twenty-two and a half per cent of 
boracic acid; it was a silicate and borate of lime, and was obtained from the 
region of the Minnesota copper mine. Dr. Hayes stated that if this mineral 
was abundant, it might be collected with commercial advantage. 

Dr. Kneeland observed that the same substance is abundant in the Portage 
Lake region, and exhibited from the cabinet of the Society a large specimen 
obtained by him from the Isle Royale mine. 

Devonian Rocks and Fossils in Wisconsin. — A private communication to 
the editor of the American Journal of Science states that Mr. J. A. Lapham 
has recently announced the discovery of rocks near Milwaukie equivalent 
to the Devonian, and containing remains of characteristic fishes. These 
remains consist of fragments of bone, teeth, a paddle, with portions of the 
tuberculated skin or osseous covering. The bed containing these remains 
overlies the Niagara group, and is the uppermost of the geological series yet 
observed in Wisconsin. 

flora of the Older Paleozoic Rocks. —M. Goeppert, the German naturalist, 
states that the flora of the Silurian, Devonian, and lower Carboniferous 
deposits comprise one hundred and eighty-four species of plants, including 
thirty different kinds of algze. Paleontologists have heretofore supposed the 
number to be much less. 

Fossil Hggs from the Odlite. — At a recent meeting of the Royal Geological 
Society (England), Professor Buckman called attention to the discovery of a 
group of fossil reptilian eggs in a block of oolitic limestones from a quarry 
near Cirencester, England. The petrified turtle-eggs from the coral-sands 
of the Pacific, those of crocodiles in the West Indies, and those of snakes 


GEOLOGY. 805 


in the fresh-water limestones of Germany, prepare the geologist for the 
occurrence of fossil reptilian eggs in the oOlitic limestones, which are often 
similar to the coral-sands of our present seas. 

Motion of Glaciers. — The results of an expedition to the Alps, in the 
winter of 1859, by Professor Tyndall, of London, have been published 
during the past year. He remained two nights at Montanvert, and deter- 
mined with a theodolite the motion of the Mer-de-Glace, and found it to be 
about one-half of its summer’s motion. Crystals of snow fell almost with- 
out intermission during the progress of the measurements. He afterwards 
visited the vault of the Aveiron, and found a turbid stream issuing from it, 
indiéating that even in winter the motion of the glacier along its bed, by 
which the rocks over which it passes are ground, is never suspended. 


PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL WELLS. 


Considerable excitement has been occasioned during the past year by the 
obtaining of large supplies of Petroleum, or, as it is commonly called, “ Rock 
Oil,” in Northern Pennsylvania, and the application of the same to commer- 
cial purposes. The yield of some of the wells which have been opened by 
boring is very remarkable. At Oil Creek, Venango County, Pennsylvania, 
single wells are reported to have yielded from four hundred to eight hundred 
or even one thousand gallons daily. In some instances the oil overflows from 
the opening of the well spontaneously, but in most cases it is obtained by 
pumping. The crude oil burns dimly, and is a very good lubricator, but 
when refined it has little smoke or odor, and in illuminating qualities equals 
the best coal-oils. Its price at the wells of Pennsylvania is about twenty 
cents per gallon, and it is estimated that from twenty thousand to thirty thou- 
sand barrels have been afforded by the State of Pennsylvania during the past 
year. Near Pittsburg there are several oil wells, which yield a supply nearly 
sufficient to employ two works in refining it. At Petroleum, on the North- 
western Railroad of Virginia, and within a radius of ten miles around it, there 
are thirty wells being pumped, averaging five barrels per day each, giving 
a total of one hundred and fifty barrels per day. Boring for oil in this 
region is constantly going on, and it is probable it will be very produc- 
tive. On the Kanawha river, in Virginia, at the salt works, the oil has been 
“tubed out” of the wells on account of its damaging the quality of the 
salt, but it is believed that a large quantity could be obtained there by 
proper boring. 

The cost of boring a well in the oil districts of Pennsylvania — from two 
to four inches in diameter — varies with the locality, six hundred dollars 
being considered sufficient for a well two hundred feet deep in some places, 
and two hundred dollars for one of one hundred feet in depth in others. 
For a well yielding ten or fifteen barrels per day, the outlay, to include 
tanks in which the oil is separated from water by settling, and sheds, work- 
shops, etc., is from $1000 to $1500. The long duration of this supply of 
natural oil is somewhat doubtful, from the fact that a number of the wells 
have ceased to yield; but it is certain that an immense quantity will be 
obtained for years to come; and it is not improbable that, with a better 
knowledge of the geology of the country, and the experience which is fast 
accumulating, the oil wells may be made a permanent source of wealth. 

Concerning the origin of these oils, no doubt can be entertained that they 
haye exuded, or have been distiiled, from animal or vegetable products, the 

26* 


306 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


relics of former ages, buried in sedimentary deposits. The oils of Northern 
Pennsylvania come up through rocks below the coal measures, and which 
are older than the carboniferous limestones, which in this locality constitute 
the surface rocks. 

At the meeting of the American Association, 1860, Professor J. D. Whit- 
ney called attention to the fact that these oils had been obtained from the 
Hudson river group of the Silurian rocks, in which few or no vegetable 
remains occur, thus leading to the inference that the oils may be entirely of 
animal origin. 

Mr. W. Denton, a geologist of Painesville, Ohio, from a careful investiga- 
tion of the subject, also comes to the conclusion that these oils have in 
many instances an animal origin, and that they have especially been derived 
from the substance of the coral animals of the Devonian and Silurian epoch. 
He says, in a note to the editor: — 

“‘T have large specimens of fossil coral, the cells of which are filled with 
pure Seneca or Rock oil, some of them obtained more than a hundred miles 
from a coal region. I have seen hundreds of corals full of this oil, and 
these corals in the centre of limestone blocks, bearing no trace of oil any- 
where except in the cells of the coral. I have seen the coral reef through 
which a creek has run, thus exposing it to the air, and from this reef the oil 
was flowing; oil having that distinctive smell which once smelled is never 
forgotten. It is my opinion, therefore, that the oil comes from coral reefs, 
lying probably in some cases two or three thousand feet below the sur- 
face. The coral cells having been crushed by the pressure of the superin- 
cumbent rocks, the oil has been forced out and collected in various crevices 
and reservoirs in the strata.” 


INTERESTING PALZONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


At the meeting of the American Association for 1860, Professor W. B. 
Rogers gave an account of the recent discovery, by Mr. Norman Easton, of 
fossils in the conglomerate of Taunton River, Massachusetts. Mr. Easton 
had also found fossils in the pebbles forming part of the conglomerate 
boulders about Fall River. In company with Mr. Easton, he had traced this 
conglomerate to its beds in Dighton, where they had found fossils in the 
pebbles in situ. Similar fossils had also been found in the conglomerate 
about Newport, R. L., and they seem to be allied to the Lingula prima of the 
Potsdam.sandstone. This was opening a new field of fossils. 

Colonel Foster said that he had little doubt that this was the Lingula of 
the Potsdam sandstone. He had no doubt that the Potsdam sandstone 
existed in New England, covered, perhaps, by the waters of the ocean. The 
geological survey of New England was yet to be made. He believed that 
the palwozoic rocks would be found on the Atlantic slope in full series. 

Professor Rogers thought they would be found sporadically in many 
portions of New England; but so enormous had been the extent of the 
denudation that he feared that in no place could the continuous series be 
found. 

Professor Agassiz thought the specimens were sufficient for a comparison 
with the fossils of the Potsdam sandstone. The discovery of the Paradoz- 
ides corrected one general statement, that the conglomerates of New Eng- 
land were of the Carboniferous period. This was another step in the same 
direction, and a very interesting one. 


GEOLOGY. | 307 


Professor Rogers spoke of the singularity of the fact that the Paradoxides 
was found also in the oldest rocks of Bohemia, separated from its fellows in 
New England by such wide extent of sea and land. 

Professor Rogers then gave some account of his geological observations in 
the northeastern part of Maine. He believed that there would be found 
in this section rocks of the Upper Silurian, corresponding to the Clinton 
group, and rising into the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous towards the 
coal measures of New Brunswick. 

Mr. J. S. Newberry then spoke of the origin and distribution of the sedi- 
ments composing the stratified rocks of North America. He believed that 
mechanical deposition by the ocean took place only along shore, and that in 
the deep sea the sediments were entirely organic. He had found this to be 
proved by the deep-sea lead. It had been supposed that every great river 
carried its sediment far out to sea, but the soundings off the mouth of the 
Mississippi showed that the deposits were confined to a very limited space. 
Apparently all the sediment which was not deposited within a few miles of 
the mouth of the river was taken into chemical solution. He adduced 
many instances of rocks, from New England to New Mexico, going to prove 
this theory of mechanical deposition. He thought he found in the creta- 
ceous formation of the West indications that-it was deposited during a 
period of depression, and he believed that the tertiary of that portion of the 
country was deposited during a period of elevation. 


REMARKABLE MASS OF METEORIC IRON. 


Among the collections made by Dr. John Evans, United States Geologist 
for Washington Territory, is a small mass of iron, which has been examined 
by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, and found to be meteoric. According 
to Dr. Evans, the specimen was taken from a large mass which projects 
three or four feet from the soil of Rogue River Mountain, in Oregon. The 
part exposed is four or five feet in width and length. 

The following is the result of an analysis by Dr. Jackson, of Boston: — 

“‘ Specific gravity of the pure metallic mass, 7.8334; 10.7 grains yielded, — 


Tron, . : : . - 2 : - . : - 89.000 
Nickel, ; P 3 ; P 3 2 : P : 10.290 
Tin and a little Silica A 3 é ° p F 4 0.729 

100.019 


‘Nitric acid produces on a polished surface the usual Widmanstatian 
figures.” ‘It resembles the Siberian Pallas meteorite,*and like it contains 
large crystals of chrysolite, the cavities left by them being as large as 
filberts.” 

This remarkable meteorite is only forty miles from Port Orford, and could 
be got for shipment without great expense. Dr. Jackson has urged its 
removal to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. — Mining Journal. 


NATIVE IRON IN AFRICA. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. Hayes 
stated that he had received additional information from Liberia, Africa, 
which rendered it improbable that there are any deposits of native iron in 
that country, as has been hitherto supposed; the singular specimens of 


308 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


African iron forwarded to this country, which have given rise to the sup- 
position, owing their apparently natural structure to a peculiar method of 
smelting the ore adopted by the natives. 


EARTHQUAKE PHENOMENA. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture on the above subject recently 
delivered before the Royal Institution, London, by Professor Ansted : — ° 

The whole number of recorded earthquakes upon which any dependence 
can be placed amounts, at present, to somewhere near 7000. (This calcula- 
tion is made only up to 1850, and there have been many since). Of these 
7000 we know actually the dates of a large proportion, that is, the time 
of year when they took place. The whole number recorded up to the year 
1500 is 787 only. During the three following centuries, that is, from the 
beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth, there were 2804, — 
four times as many as in all previous time. The whole number recorded 
since 1800 down to 1850 is 3340. We may conclude that 3240 in half a cen- 
tury is the nearest approximation as to numbers that we can at present 
obtain. From this, then, we may calculate our average, and we find that 
certainly more than one earthquake takes place every week on some or 
other of the visited parts of the earth. Of these, however, not more than 
one in every forty on an average are of great importance. An important 
earthquake occurs, therefore, once in every eight months; and we under- 
stand by this a disturbance of considerable magnitude, capable of doing 
much mischief if it occurs near human habitations. Such, at any rate, has 
been the average of the first half of the present century, even without 
making allowance for those numerous cases which must have happened, . 
although we have heard nothing about them. 

If, however, we take the statistics as far as Europe only is concerned, we 
shall find that during the last ten years, or rather during a period of ten 
years in which calculation was made very carefully (from 1833 to 1812 inclu- 
sive), thirty-three earthquakes occurred on an average in every year. In 
other words, in these ten years there were 320 distinct earthquakes in Europe 
only; and, therefore, in Europe an earthquake occurs every twelve days. 
It is evident that the records for other parts of the world will be much less 
perfect than those of Europe, and that the number generally may be far 
greater than is above stated. This result is startling, and I confess I was not 
prepared for it when the evidence came before me. 

Earthquakes must be regarded as the undulations produced by the exercise 
of some great expansive forces acting beneath the earth’s surface on tolerably 
well-defined zones, whenever such expansive force rapidly breaks asunder, 
instead of quietly and slowly heaving up the vast weight of overlying earth 
- and sea that intervenes between its point of action and the upper surface. 
The convulsive or paroxysmal movement thus occasioned by the fracture of 
rocks at a great depth generally causes an earth-wave to be propagated to a 
distance which is proportioned to the amount of force exercised and the 
depth at which it acts, and not unfrequently opens out a communication to 
the surface, and terminates in a volcanic eruption. After one great wave is 
thus formed and sent on, it is often repeated before it quite dies away. In 
any case, the result at the surface consists of the propagation of a wave 
throuzh rocks of various degrees of elasticity. The cracking of the earth 
at the surface may have nothing whatever to do with the fracture below; and 


GEOLOGY. 809 


the vent, if any, may be at a great distance from the immediate source of 
disturbance. 

Judging from their great frequency, from their constant recurrence in cer- 
tain districts, and from the comparative periodicity of extreme paroxysms, 
as well as of minor convulsions, there would seem little doubt that some 
widely-spread general cause, cosmical, and not merely terrestrial, is con- 
nected with and governs the forces brought into play on these occasions. 
From what we know of the electric force and its relations with earth-magnet- 
ism, of the approximately superficial character of earth-magnetism, and of 
the certainly small depth of most earthquake movements, as proved by the 
small area they affect, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that to the agency 
of heat, initiated by electricity, and connected with those chemical results 
produced by the mutual action of natural substances under certain conditions 
of contact, we are indebted for the paroxysmal movements which record at 
the surface, however obscurely, what is going on far away out of our sight 
in nature’s great laboratory. 

Under the infiuence of the attraction of the moon and sun, the portions of 
the interior of the earth in a fluid state, no less than the waters of the ocean 
and the gases of the atmosphere, are doubtless subject to tidal influences; 
whilst the direct but periodic action of the rays proceeding from the sun, chang- 
ing, as it appears they do, during long but definite cycles, and according to 
laws which we seem now only beginning to recognize, may, and most proba- 
bly does, bring about periodic paroxysmal action within the earth, which 
may thus seem to depend on months or seasons, on the moon’s position, or 
the sun’s clearness or obscurity, or on the magnetic state of the higher parts 
of the atmosphere, —causes which one would think quite unlikely to have 
influence on what goes on so far out of the immediate range of their action. 
Tt is true that nothing has yet proved a direct connection between earth- 
quakes and such cosmical phenomena; but what is now known supports the 
conclusion, that changes in terrestrial temperature, and in the circulation of 
electric, thermic, or magnetic currents, converting heat into force, may pro- 
duce, or in some way govern, the chemical changes which result in an earth- 
quake. 

No doubt both sun and moon do, either directly or indirectly, by light, by 
heat, and by electricity, as well as by the force of gravitation, largely influ- 
ence all that is above, upon, or beneath the surface of our planet. Perhaps 
also it will be found some day that the nature, and even the extent, of this 
influence are within the range of human discovery. These are, however, yet 
among the dark and unexplained mysteries of nature. We may suggest 
mutual relations, but we cannot follow out these suggestions into practical 
and definite conclusions. 

And, lastly, what is our own position with reference to the chances of 
earthquake disturbance? We live in an area certainly subject to such move- 
ments, and not very far from those countries where the most severe earth- 
quakes on record have happened. Earthquakes have frightened our fore- 
fathers, and may overwhelm us. The fatal explosion may happen this or 
next year; it may not happen in this century. It may originate beneath our 
very feet, or at the bottom of the ocean near our shores; or it may take 
place so far away that we hear only the faint, distant echoes of the convulsive 
throe; but we are not the less certainly living over a mine ready to be sprung, 
and no one can tell when or where the fatal match will be applied. 


810 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


EXPLORATION OF THE VOLCANO OF PICHINCHA. 


The following letter, descriptive of an exploration of the celebrated voleano 
Pichincha, by M. Moreno, has been published in the Edinburgh New Philo- 
sophical Journal : — 

The short distance at which the voleano Rucu-Pichincha is situated from 
Quito, has contributed to excite the curiosity of the scientific travellers who 
have visited the territory of the Ecuador, and have caused the state and 
form of the volcano to be well known. Bouguer and La Condamine, in 1742, 
were the first who reached the brink of the crater; Humboldt, in May, 1802, 
twice surmounted the gigantic wall of dolerite which forms the eastern 
border of the volcano; and about thirty years after, Colonel Hall and M. 
Boussingault followed in the same path; but since 1844, in which M. Sebas- 
tin Wisse and I descended to explore it, no one had reached the bottom. In 
August, 1815, we returned with the intention of making the topographical 
plan of the volcano, measuring heights, etc.; and, in order that we might do 
this, we had to pass three days and three nights in the two deepest cavities 
which form Pichincha. 

This volcano forms two great basins, one on the east of the other, 4921 
English feet in length. The eastern basin, called, without sufficient reason, 
“Eastern Crater,” has the form of a narrow valley, long and deep, through 
the middle of which passes, from north to south, a fissure which receives the 
rain and melted snow. There exists a slight depression in the upper part of 
this basin, of an elliptical form, and perfectly horizontal at the bottom, 
similar in everything to a little Alpine lake dried up by the action of the sun; 
a depression which at one time, from its form, gave rise to the belief in the 
existence of an inactive crater. The depth of this supposed crater is 1050 
feet below the wall of eastern rocks; and as the highest of these reaches to 
15,748 feet above the level of the sea, the height of the bottom of the eastern 
crater is 14,698 feet. 

The western basin, or, more properly, the true crater of Pichincha, is one 
of the most imposing objects which is presented to naturalists, and presents 
the figure of a truncated cone placed upon its inferior base, which is 1476 
feet in diameter, and rises in height to 2296 feet. Its depth from the eastern 
_side is enormous; and gazing upon the immense towers of dolerite and tra- 
chyte, elevated 2460 feet, sometimes vertically, sometimes in slopes more or 
less steep and varied, an impression is received which can never be effaced. 
Towards the western part, the height of the walls of the crater diminishes 
gradually, leaving open to the east a fissure from whence the united waters 
escape during the rains or thaws. 

In the middle of the inclined plain, which constitutes the bottom of the 
volcano, the actual cone of eruption rises; it is 820 feet in diameter, 262 in 
height above the bottom of the middle of the crater, and 13,707 above the 
level of the sea, standing 4166 feet above Quito. This litile mountain is now 
the centre of volcanic activity in Pichincha, and presented in 1845 clear indi- 
cations of remaining permanent many years without increase of intensity. 
A great part of this mountain is covered with vegetation; two regions, part- 
ing in opposite directions, completely gird it, until they are united in the 
cleft of which I have spoken; and in the two points from whence the cone 
of eruption is depressed (one to the centre, the other to the southeast), there 
is given out in abundance a hot and sulphurous vapor, which lines with sul- 


GEOLOGY. iit. 


phur the holes and interstices between the fragments of rock of which the 
cone is composed. 

We failed, in the expedition of 1845, to study the voleanic and vegetable 
products which the crater presented. in order to examine its actual state, 
and to fill this blank, I descended on the 16th of December, 1857, carrying, as 
far as possible, what was necessary for the perilous situations in which Tf 
expected to be placed. I was engaged little more than three hours in the 
descent, and half-past eleven of the day found me at the cone of eruption. 
The form which this presents proves that the bottom of Pichincha has been 
recently the theatre of considerable convulsions. The vegetation which coy- 
ered it has disappeared from the eastern side; the depression which exists 
towards the southeast, at the foot of the cone, has widened itself, and has 
filled up a part of the broken enclosure, interrupting it perpendicularly with 
a broad wall of stones, undoubtedly shot out from its interior. Near to this, 
and towards the south, it has formed, since 1845, a new depression, or, speak- 
ing more properly, a new accidental crater, from whence arises a great mass 
of vapor, so that the cone of eruption has at present three apertures or 
craters: the principal occupying the higher part; the ancient accidental 
crater placed at the southeast and at the foot of the former; and the new 
accidental crater open likewise at the foot and at the south of the principal 
one. 

The voleanic activity of Pichincha has increased remarkably, as is mani- 
fested by the greater exhalation of vapors. In 1845, the chimneys from 
whence the gases arose formed six groups, of which only one was consider- 
able. Now the vapors escape by innumerable interstices and hollows which 
the stones leave in each of the craters; and in the principal one is heard a 
noise resembling that made by an immense caldron of boiling water. 

The temperature of the vapors varies much in the different interstices. In 
the crater of the southeast, the vapors of the highest interstices are nearly 
188.6° Fahrenheit, whilst in the lower ones the temperature was only 140° 
Fahrenheit. In the principal crater, the hottest vapors did not come up to 
194° Fahrenheit; in the largest interstice that I have observed, into which a 
person could easily enter, if the thick column of vapor would permit him, 
the temperature was only 98.6° Fahrenheit at three feet of depth. Filling a 
graduated tube with water, and placing it within the interstices, I collected 
the gases several times in order to analyze them, and, moreover, condensed 
them, by means of a bottle filled with cold water, and gathered the drops of 
fluid which were formed. The result of my observations is, that the gases of 
Pichincha contain a scarcely perceptible trace of sulphurous, sulphuric, and 
sulphydric acids, four per cent of carbonic acid, and the rest composed exclu- 
sively of water. I present these results only as approximate ones. The 
atmospheric air is always mixed with the volcanic gases in those points 
where it is possible to collect it; and this cause of error is inevitable, with- 
out reckoning those which occur from the personal difficulties of the observer. 

The solid products of the volcano are the sublimed sulphur which covers 
almost all the stones and fissures, and a white sait which appears in silky 
fibres, and shows itself in many of the interstices, sometimes alternating 
with the flour of sulphur in parallel coatings, sometimes in an abundant 
and pure mass. This salt is a double sulphate of alum and of the protoxide 
of iron, likewise formed in other volcanoes, and known by the name of 
< alumbre de pluma,” or plumose alum. Dissolved in water, it crystallizes by 
spontaneous evaporation in a derivative form of the oblique rhomboidal 


B12 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


prism. Besides these products, there is found scoria, composed of melted 
sulphur and ashes of pyroxene and dolerite, more or less calcined or altered 
by the action of the watery vapors. 


ON THE MODE OF FORMATION OF VOLCANIC CONES AND CRATERS. 


In a paper presented to the Geological Society (London) by Mr. G. Poulett 

Scrope, the author combated the doctrine originated by Humboldt, Von 
Buch, de Beaumont, and others, which denies altogether that volcanic moun- 
tains have been formed by accumulations of eruptive matters, and attributes 
them solely to a sudden “ bubble-shaped swelling up” of preéxisting hori- 
zontal strata, the bubble sometimes bursting at the top and then leaving its 
broken sides tilted up around a hollow (elevation crater). The author ex- 
pressed his belief that this notion originated in Humboldt’s account of the 
eruption of Jorullo, in 1759, in which a great error had been committed, — 
the convexity of the hill being simply a bulky bed of lava poured out on a 
flat plain from five ordinary cones of eruption. But the idea of a “ bladder- 
like swelling up” of horizontal strata into voleanic hills being thus started 
by Humboldt, it was further extended by Von Buch, and hence arose the 
“ crater-elevation”’ theory. Mr. Scrope then proceeds to show that the 
characters of all voleanic mountains and rocks are simply and naturally to be 
accounted for by their eruptive origin, the lavas and fragmentary matters 
“accumulating round the vent in forms determined in great degree by the 
more or less imperfect fluidity of the former, which, as in case of some 
trachytic lavas, glassy or spongy, may and do congeal in domes or bulky 
masses immediately over, or in thick beds near the vent, or, as in that of 
some basaltic lavas, may flow over very moderate declivities to great dis- 
tances; and consequently that the upheaval or elevation-crater theory is a 
gratuitous assumption, unsupported by direct observation, and contrary to 
the evidence of facts. He concludes by representing its continued acceptance 
to be discreditable to science, and an impediment to the progress of sound 
geology, inasmuch as false ideas of the bubble-like inflation, at one stroke, 
of such mountains as Etna or Chimborazo, must seriously affect all our spec- 
ulations on geological dynamics, and on the nature of the subterranean 
forces by which other mountain-ranges or continents are formed. 

Conical Form of Volcanoes. — Sir Charles Lyell, in a paper recently read 
before the Royal Institution (London), infers, from two recent excursions to 
Eina, that the discovery of lava being capable of forming continuous and 
tabular masses of crystalline rock on steep slopes, often exceeding thirty 
degrees, enables us henceforth to dispense with that paroxysmal and terminal 
upheaval, which the advocates of “ craters of elevation ” legitimately deduced 
from their premises; for it was as necessary for them, so long as the volcanic 
beds were assumed to have been originally horizontal, to ascribe the whole 
elevation to a force acting from below, as it would have been if the upper- 
most layers of each volcanic mountain could be assumed to be of marine 
origin. In opposition to such a doctrine, Sir C. Lyell maintains that mechan- 
ical force has nowhere played such a dominant part in the cone-making 
process as tO warrant our applying any other term save that of “ cones of 
eruption” to voleanic mountains in general. 

Ia conclusion, the lecturer gave a brief sketch of the series of geological 
evenis which he supposed to have occurred on the site of Etna since the 
time of the earliest erupiions, — events which may have required thousands 


GEOLOGY. 313 


of centuries for their development. The first eruptions are helicved to have 
been submarine, occurring probably in a bay of the sea, which was gradually 
converted into land by the outpouring of lava and scoriz, as well as by a 
slow and simultaneous upheaval of the whole territory. The basalts, and 
other igneous products of the Cyclopean Islands, were formed contempora- 
neously in the same sea, the molluscous fauna of which approached very near 
to that now inhabiting the Mediterranean; so much so, that about nineteen- 
twentieths of the fossil species of the sub-Etnean tertiary strata still live in 
the adjoining seas. Hence, as that part of Etna which is of sub-aerial origin 
is newer than such fossils, the age of the mountain is proved to be, geologi- 
cally speaking, extremely modern. During the period when the volcano 
was slowly built up, a movement of upheaval was gradually converting 
tracts of the neighboring bed of the sea into land, and causing the oldest 
volcanic and associated sedimentary strata to rise, until they reached 
eventually a height of twelve hundred feet, and perhaps more, above the 
sea-level. At the same time the old coast-line, together with the alluvial 
deposits of rivers, was upraised, and inland cliffs and terraces formed at 
successive heights. The remains of elephants, and other quadrupeds, some 
of extinct species, are found in these old and upraised alluviums. Fossil 
leaves of terrestrial plants also, such as the laurel, myrtle, and pistachio, of 
species indigenous to Sicily, have been detected in the oldest sub-aerial tuffs. 
At first the cone of Trifoglietto, and probably the lower part of the cone of 
Mongibello, was built up; still later the cone last mentioned, becoming the 
sole centre of activity, overwhelmed the eastern cone, and finally underwent 
in itself various transformations, including the truncation of its summit, and 
the truncation of the Val del Bove on its eastern flank. Lastly, the phase of 
lateral eruptions began, which still continues in full vigor. 


IMPRESSIONS OF BONES IN THE MESOZOIC RED SANDSTONE. 


At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor 
Rogers exhibited a cast taken from the surface of a block of red sandstone, 
containing the impressions of bones, apparently of ornithic character. The 
rock was found near the landing at Fort Adams, Newport, along with many 
others brought there for building purposes. It is stated to have come origi- 
nally from the quarry at Portland, Conn., and evidently belongs to the 
Mesozoic sandstone formation of the Connecticut valley. The specimen is 
unique, and it is hoped that when duly examined it will help us to a more 
definite knowledge of some of the animals whose footprints are so abundant 
in this group of rocks. 


ON THE FOSSIL BIRD BONES OF NEW ZEALAND. 


Dr. Hochstetter, the geologist of the late Austrian Exploring Expedition, 
was so fortunate as to obtain in New Zealand several of the most complete 
collections of the bones of the extinct fossil bird (the Moa) of these islands 
which have yet been found, together with a perfect skull of the Moa. These 
were mainly exhumed from caves, and the operations of the party investi- 
gating are thus described by Dr. H.:— 

The excitement of the Moa-diggers was great, and increased; for the 
deeper they went below the stalagmite crusts covering the floor, the Jarecr 
were the bones they found, and whole legs, from the hip-bone to the claws 


27 


Sik ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of the toes, were exposed. They dug and washed three days and three 
nights, and on the fourth day they returned in triumph to Collingwood, 
followed by two pack-bullocks loaded with Moa bones. I must confess that 
not only was it a cause of great excitement to the people of Collingwood, 
but also to myself, as the gigantic bones were laid before our view. A 
Maori bringing me two living kiwis from Rocky River gave us an oppor- 
tunity to compare the remains of the extinct species of the family with the 
living Apteryx. The observations of M. Haast, made during this search, 
throw a new light upon this great family of extinct birds.- He found that 
according to the depth so was the size of the remains, thus proving that 
the greater the antiquity the larger the species. The bones of Dinornis 
grassus and ingens (a bird standing the height of nine feet) were always: 
found at a lower level than the bones of Dinornis didiformis (Owen) of only 
four feet high. These gigantic birds belong to an era prior to the human 
race, to a post-tertiary period. And it is a remarkable, incomprehensible 
fact of the creation, that whilst at the very same period in the Old World 
elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami; in South America, gigantic sloths 
and armadillos; in Australia, gigantic kangaroos, wombats, and dasyures 
were living; the colossal forms of animal life were represented in New 
Zealand by gigantic birds, who walked the shores then untrod by the foot 
of any quadruped. 


PRESERVATION OF FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE. 


Mr. Alexander Bryson, in a paper communicated to the Royal Society, 
remarks that the impressions of the feet of birds and molluscs on wet sand 
were liable to be effaced by the return of the tide; and that their preserva- 
tion was owing to dry sand blown into the depressions from the shore, and 
again covered by a layer of moist sand or mud by the return of the tide. In 
regard to tracks left by gasterapodous molluscs, he stated that great caution 
was necessary to distinguish them from those left by Nereids; and instanced 
the case of a foot-track of a common whelk resembling the marks made by 
the Crossopodia on the Silurian slates. When the track of the whelk is 
filled up by the dry sand blown into the depression in the line of progress, 
no difficulty is felt in recognizing it as the track of a gasteropod; but should 
the wind blow at right angles to the track of a mollusc, a series of setz-like 
markings will be observed to leeward, caused by the dry sand adhering to 
the moist. In this instance, a geologist would naturally assign the markings 
to the impression of Graptolites priodon, or sagittatus; and if the wind sud- 
denly shifted to the opposite direction, another series of setze would be 
found on the other side of the molluse’s track, and the observer would at 
once pronounce the marks due to a gigantic Crossopodia, or fringe-footed 
Annelide. 

-The author also stated that the so-called rain-marks found on sandstone 
and Silurian slates were formed by crustacea, and that the cusps, which 
geologists had supposed were the evidence of the force and direction of the 
wind during the shower, were produced by the wind blowing dry sand from 
the shore, and causing a raised barrier to leeward of the depression, where 
there was. more moisture, and consequently more adhesion to the sand. — 
Edinburgh New Philos. Journal. 


GEOLOGY. | 315 


ON THE EXTINCT MARSUPIAL ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA. 


The following is an abstract of a lecture recently delivered by Professor 
Owen, at the Government School of Mines, London, on the extinct quadru- 
peds whose remains have been recently discovered in the caverns of Aus- 
tralia, and in the auriferous and other tertiary deposits of that country. 

All the species which he had reconstructed from those fossils belonged to 
the same low group of mammalia, with small brains, to which the living 
marsupial quadrupeds belong. Not any marsupial species is indigenous to 
the continents of Europe, Asia, or Africa. On the discovery of America, 
some small quadrupeds of that continent became known to naturalists, as 
being peculiar by possessing a pouch in which the young were protected and 
carried for some time after birth, whence the name Marsupialia, signifying 
“pouched beasts.”” The American species all belong to one genus, called 
Didelphys, or opossum. They are small insectivorous quadrupeds, and most 
of them dwell in trees. 

When Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks returned from the circumnavi- 
gatory voyage in which Botany Bay was discovered, they brought informa- 
tion of other marsupial animals which lived in Australia, and especially that 
called the “kangaroo,” so remarkable for the length and strength of the 
hind legs and tail. The subsequent travellers and settlers in Australia soon 
transmitted additional information, with specimens of the peculiar marsupial 
quadrupeds of that continent, so that the Marsupialia are now known as an 
extensive order, the species of which are restricted to America, Australia, 
Tasmania, New Guinea, and a few islands extending thence towards Asia. 

The principal genera were then described, some being carnivorous, others 
insectivorous, others frugivorous, or feeding on buds and leaves, others 
herbivorous, others burrowing and living on roots. The opossums (Di- 
deiphys) = peculiar to America; none are found in Australasia. The 
greatest number and diversity of marsupial quadrupeds exist in Australia 
and Tasmania. . 

Of the present known existing Marsupialia, the largest species are the 
great kangaroo (Macropus major), familiar to most by living specimens in 
menageries and zoological gardens, and the Thylacine, or hyena of the Tas- 
manian colonist; the latter is carnivorous, and about the size of the shep- 
herd’s dog. Most of the Marsupialia are smaller than the common cat. 

Professor Owen then proceeded to give a history of the discovery of fossil 
remains of animals in Australia. The first which he noticed was that made 
by Major, afterwards Sir Thomas, Mitchell, the Surveyor General of Aus- 
tralia in 1831. In his first exploring expedition, this traveller discovered 
extensive caves in a limestone district of Wellington Valley, and in the 
breccias of the caves he found many fossil bones and teeth, which were 
submitted to Professor Owen’s inspection, and described by him in the 
appendix to the account of the expedition published by Sir T. Mitchell in 
1838. Among these cave fossils Professor Owen had discovered remains of 
the phalanger (Phalangista), the wombat (Phascolomys), the potoroo (Hypri- 
prymnus), the kangaroo (Macropus), the Dasyurus and Thylactnus. But, 
although the fossils were referable to the foregoing existing genera, they 
were all different from any species now known. Among the Kangaroos 
were two species which were much larger than the DZucropus major: the 
remains of the Dasyurus were larger than those of the D. ursinus, which is 
now the largest living species, andis peculiar to Tasmania. The Thylacinus, 


516 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


also, was by this discovery known to have formerly lived in Australia, as 
well as in Tasmania, to which it is now restricted. But, besides the fore- 
going fossils, there was a single tooth, an incisor or tusk of some quadruped 
which must have equalled a large ox or a rhinoceros in size. In this tooth 
Professor Owen perceived such characters as led him to found upon it a new 
genus, which he termed Diprotodon. 

In 1844 Professor Owen received some fossils from Dr. Hobson, of Mel- 
bourne, which had been discovered in sinking a well at Mount Macedon, 
near Port Philip. These fossils included a portion of the lower jaw, having 
an incisive tusk in situ, identical in shape and structure with that on which 
the genus Diprotodon had been founded, and also molar teeth, resembling in 
form those of the kangaroo, but with generic modifications. This confirma- 
tion of the former existence in Australia of a gigantic marsupial herbivorous 
quadruped allied to the kangaroo was communicated to the British Associa- 
tion at their meeting in 1844, and was noticed in the Annals and Magazine 
of Natural History for October, 1844. In the same paper Professor Owen 
stated that he had received from Sir Thomas Mitchell some Australian 
fossils, indicative of a second genus of large marsupial quadrupeds, which 
he described under the name Nototherium. 

Although the molar teeth in both the Diprotodon and Nototherium presented 
the same two-ridged type as in the kangaroo, they differed in wanting the 
smaller connecting ridge; and Professor Owen was led to infer, from the 
structure of the astragalus and calcanewm (two of the ankle bones), that the 
hind limbs differed in a greater degree from those of the present kangaroos. 
The above-named tarsal bones had been transmitted, with other fossil bones, 
from Moreton Bay, by Sir Thomas Mitchell; they presented marsupial char- 
acters, and by their size might have belonged to either the Diprotodon or 
Nototherium. In the kangaroos these ankle bones have peculiarities associ- 
ated with the very long hind legs; but the large fossil ones resemble more 
those of the wombat; whence Professor Owen inferred that the Diprotodon 
must have had the hind limbs more nearly equal in length to the fore limbs. 
Subsequent discoveries proved the truth of this inference. 

In 1817, a Mr. Turner brought from Darling Downs to Sydney, New South 
Wales, a large collection of fossil bones, chiefly obtained from King’s Creek, 
a tributary of the Condamine River, Darling Downs. These downs are 
extensive, slightly undulated plains covered with herbage, developed from a 
rich, black soil containing concretions of carbonate of Jime. Ranges of low 
hills, with sudden slopes, and flat-topped cones formed of basaltic rock, rest- 
ing on a felspathic or trachytic base, accompany the shallow valleys, and 
bear an open forest, formed of various species of rather stunted Eucalyptus. 
The plains are filled with an alluvium of great depth, wells of sixty feet 
deep haying been sunk in it. The plains in which the fossils have been found 
are those distinguished by the creeks called Hodgson’s, Campbell’s, Isaac’s, 
King’s, Oakey’s, etc. These creeks traverse the plains on the west side of 
the Condamine, into which they fall. The fossils are found in the beds of 
the creeks, particularly in the mud of the dried-up waterholes, or among beds 
of trachytic pebbles, which are overlaid by layers of clay and loam, with 
marly concretions, above which is the rich, black surface soil. 

Fossil bivalve and univalve shells are found associated with, and sometimes 
cemented to, the bones; but they are of the same species as those still exist- 
ine in the present creeks and waterholes. 

The most extraordinary of the fossils brought from King’s Creek by Mr. 


GEOLOGY. SIT 


Turner was an almost entire skull of the Diprotodon Australis. The length 
was three feet; the two great anterior tusks, whence the name ‘‘ Diproiodon,” 
projected a few inches beyond that length. Behind these tusks were two 
smaller incisors in each premaxillary bone; but these six upper incisors 
were opposed, as in the kangaroo, by a single pair of large incisors in the 
lower jaw. 

The characters of this extraordinary cranium were described by Professor 
Owen, and illustrated by drawings of the natural size. A descending process 
of the zygomatic arch was pointed out as illustrating the affinities of the 
Diprotodon with the Mycropus or the kangaroos. 

With this skull had been found a large bladebone two feet four inches 
long, a humerus two feet two inches in length, a femur two feet five inches 
in length, remarkable for the great extent of the neck; several vertebre, 
fragments of ribs, and other bones, all agreeing in proportion with the skull, 
and belonging to the same species, and most probably to the same indi- 
vidual. 

This collection of bones, when brought to Sydney, was noticed by the 
Rev. Mr. Clarke and by Mr. Macleay in letters in the Sydney Morning Herald, 
and plaster easts were taken of the chief specimens. The whole collection 
was purchased of Mr. Turner by a Mr. Boyd, who was about to return to 
England. This gentleman is stated to have died on the voyage, and the ship 
in which the fossils had been embarked was said to have been wrecked, and 
its whole cargo was supposed to have been engulfed. A series of the casts of 
the fossils taken at Sydney were transmitted by the authorities of the museum 
there to the trustees of the British Museum. About the time when these 
casts arrived, a sale of fossil remains took place at Stevens’s auction-rooms; 
these fossils were found to belong to large marsupial animals, were purchased 
for the British Museum, and proved to be originals from which the casts in 
the Sydney Museum had been taken. The auctioneer stated that they had 
been the property of a Mr. Boyd. They will form the subject of a memoir 
by Professor Owen. Besides the parts of the skeleton of the great Diprotodon, 
they included a lower jaw of the same large extinct marsupial which the pro- 
fessor had previously determined under the name of Nototheritum Mitchelli ; 
and this jaw showed that there were two incisive tusks and ten molar teeth, 
five on each side, in that genus. 

In January, 1858, Professor Owen received from Mr. George Bennett, 
F.R.S., of Sydney, sketches of a fossil cranium, which had been found in 
the same formation and locality in Darling Downs as the Diprotodon, This 
new skull was eighteen inches long and fifteen inches wide. It had three inci- 
sors and five molars on each side, and, from its correspondence in size with the 
lower jaw of the Nototherium, the Professor believed it to belong to that 
genus. A cast of the cranium had been sent from Sydney to the British 
Museum, and has served to show that a fragment of upper jaw with molar 
teeth, in Mr. Turner’s collection, belonged to the same genus. These teeih 
show precisely that structure which Professor Owen had previously pointed 
out as distinguishing the teeth of the Nofotherium from those of the Dipro- 
todon. The lower jaw of the Nototherium Mitchelli in Mr. Turner’s series, 
now in the British Museum, belongs to the same species as the cranium now 
in the museum at Sydney. This cranium is chiefly remarkable for the great 
size and width of the zygomatic arches, which have also the descending 
process as in the Diprotodon. The facial bones in advance of the orbit form 


a kind of short pedunculate appendage to the rest of the skull, increasing in 
27* 


318 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


a remarkable manner in both vertical and lateral extents towards its fore 
extremity. The cavity of the nose was divided by a bony septum, as in one 
species of the wombat. Thus were established proofs of the former exist- 
ence in Australia of two genera of herbivorous marsupial animals, resembling 
the pachyderms in proportions; one (Diprotodon) equalling or surpassing in 
size the largest living rhinoceros, the other (Nototherium) equalling the ox 
or tapir. 

Prof. Owen next referred to some fossils in the collection sent by Dr. 
Hobson, from Melbourne, Australia Felix, which belonged to a species of 
true wombat (Phascolomys), but four or five times larger than the largest 
known existing species. These species had been noticed by the professor, 
and referred to Phascolomys gigas, in the Transactions of the ZoGlogical Society. 
As early as 1842, Professor Owen inferred from the fact of there having been 
large herbivorous animals in Australia in former periods that a large carniv- 
orous animal had coéxisted with them. Im a letter to the editor of the 
Annals of Natural History, November 1, 1842, he writes: “‘ Some destructive 
species of this kind must have coéxisted of larger dimensions than the 
extinct Dasyurus Laniarius, the ancient destroyer of the now. equally extinct 
gigantic kangaroo (Macropus Titan), whose remains were discovered in the 
bone caves of Wellington Valley.” The Rey. Mr. Clarke, in his report to 
the Governor of Australia, No. 10, October 14, 1853, ‘‘ On the Geology of the 
Basin of the Condamine River,” referring to this remark, observes: “‘ The 
discovery of what must have existed cannot be altogether incapable of demon- 
stration; and, therefore, such a verification of Professor Owen’s anticipation 
is to be hoped for on many grounds.”’ 

In 1846, the professor received from Mr. William Adeney portions of a 
fossil skull of a carnivorous quadruped as large as a lion. These fossils 
were discovered in the banks of the Timboon Lake, situated eighty miles 
southwest of Melbourne. The lake is shallow, and becomes almost dry in 
autumn, when its bed is covered with a pretty thick deposit of common salt 
of good quality. ‘The surrounding country is volcanic. The fossils occur in 
a narrow white strip of calcareous conglomerate, traversing the clay cliff, 
which is here and there indented with capes of basaltic boulders. The fossil 
in question included part of the right maxillary bone, with the last two molar 
teeth. The first of these presented the trenchant or carnassial type of crown; 
ihe second was a small tubercular tooth, situated, as in the lion and tiger, on 
the inner side of the back part of the carnassial. The crown of the carnas- 
sial was two and a quarter inches in extent, that of the largest lion being one 
and a half inches; the margin of this flesh-cutting tooth is straight in the 
fossil, not indented as in the lion. A portion of the right ramus of the lower 
jaw contained two teeth answering to those above, the carnassial with an 
even cutting edge of one and a half inches in length; the tubercular, which is 
directly behind, is only half an inch long, and it is followed by the socket of 
a still smaller molar. On closely comparing this fossil with the skulls of 
existing carnivorous animals of the placental and marsupial orders, Professor 
Owen concluded from the structure of the occiput, of the organ of hearing, 
of the bony palate, and of the orbit in reference to the position of the lachry- 
ma! hole, that the jarge carnivore represented by that fossil belonged to the 
marsupial order, not to the placental carnivora. He had proposed for it the 
name Thylacoleo, or “lion with a pouch.” 

Thus were completed, by evidence of species of quadrupeds that appear to 
have become extinct in Australia, the representatives in the marsupial series 


GEOLOGY. ia 519 


of the chief forms of the terrestrial mammalia known in other parts of the 
globe. 

The professor, in conclusion, referred to the character, as one natural con- 
tinent, of the vast tract of dry land now artificially divided into Europe and 
Asia; and he showed that all the fossil remains of quadrupeds from caves 
and recent tertiary strata in Europe, coeval with the ossiferous caves and 
strata in Australia, belonged to genera which still had existing representa- 
tives in Europe or Asia, such, e. g.,as the horse, the elephant, the rhinoceros, 
oxen, deer, bears, hyznas, felines, etc. The hippopotamus, indeed, had 
become extinct in Asia, as in Europe, but still existed in Africa. He then 
made a similar comparison between the aboriginal quadrupeds of South 
America now living, such as the sloths, armadillos, ant-eaters, platyrhine, 
monkeys, llamas, peccaris, and the fossil megatheroids, gly ptodons, glosso- 
theres, large fossil monkeys, Macranchenie, and peccaris. Australia had 
already yielded evidence of an analogous correspondence between its latest 
extinct and its present mammalian fauna; and this was the more interesting 
and striking on account of the very peculiar organization of the native quad- 
rupeds of that division of the globe. The marsupials there represent analo- 
gously the chief land quadrupeds of the larger continents; the Dasyures, 
€. g., play the parts of the foxes and marten-cats; the bandicoots (Perameles), 
of the hedgehogs and shrews; the phalangers and koolas, of the squirrels 
and monkeys; the wombats, of the beavers; the kangaroos, of the deer 
tribe. 

The first collection of the mammalian fossils from the bone breccias of 
the Australian caves had brought to light the former existence of large 
species of existing marsupial genera, some of which, for example, the Thyla- 
cinus and Sarcophilus, though now seemingly extinct in Australia proper, are 
still represented by species in the adjacent island of Tasmania; the others 
were fossil wombats, phalangers, potoroos, and kangaroos, but of different 
species. The fossils of the herbivorous marsupialia were of young, or not 
full-grown, animals, whence the Professor inferred that they had been dragged 
into the cave to be devoured. Subsequently, and at short intervais, fossils 
had been obtained from pliocene strata, and these had demonstrated the 
former existence of marsupial animals representing the great pachyderms 
of Asia and the Megatherium of America, together with a marsupial beast 
of prey, rivalling the lion or tiger in size, and equal to cope with the Dipro- 
todon or Nototherium. 

Thus, it was shown that, with regard to the last extinct (pliocene) kinds, 
as with the existing kinds of mammalia, particular forms were assigned to 
particular continents or provinces; and, what was still more interesting and 
suggestive, the same forms were restricted to the some provinces at a former 
geological period as they are at the present day. 


ON THE PLEISTOCENE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 


In a communication by T. F. Jamieson, recently presented to the London 
Geological Society by Sir R. I. Murchison, he expresses his opinion that the 
following course of events may be supposed to have occurred in the Pleisto- 
cene history of Scotland: First, a period when the country stood as high 
as, or probabiy higher than, at present, with an extensive development of 
elaciers and land ice, which polished and striated the subjacent rocks, trans- 
ported many of the erratic blocks, destroyed the preéxisting alluvium, and 


520 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


left much boulder-carth in various places. Secondly, To this succeeded a 
period of submergence, when the sea gradually advanced until almost the 
whole country was covered. This was the time of the marine drift with 
floating ice. The beds with arctic shells belonged to it, and some of the 
brick-clays are probably but the fine mud of the deeper parts of the same 
sea-bottom. Thirdly, The land emerged from the water, during which 
emergence the preceding drift-beds suffered much denudation, giving rise to 
the extensive superficial accumulations of water-rolled gravel that now over- 
spread much of the surface. This movement continued until the land 
obtained a higher position than it now has, and became connected with the 
continent of Europe. Its various islands were probably also more or less 
in conjunction. The present assemblage of animals and plants gradually 
migrated hither from adjoining lands. Glaciers may have still been formed 
in favorable places, but probably never regained the former extension. 
Fourthly, The Jand sank again until the sea in most places reached a height 
of from thirty to forty feet above the present tide-mark. Patches of forest 
ground were submerged along the coast. Fifthly, An elevation at length 
took place, by which the land attained its present level. As Mr. Smith has 
shown, this probably occurred before the Roman invasion; but that man 
had previously got into the country, appears from the fact that the elevated 
beds of silt near Glasgow contained overturned and swamped canoes with 
stone implements. 


INTERESTING FOSSILS FROM GREECE. 


During the past year M. Gaudry, a French geologist, has been engaged in 
exploring some deposits of reddish earth at Pakermi, in the district of 
Attica, Greece, which were known to be rich in the remains of extinct mam- 
malia. These deposits have been formed by erosion of the rocks of Pen- 
telicus; toward the summit of the mountain they are thin, but increase in 
thickness the nearer they approach to the plains, and they extend to the 
margin of the sea, covering a very large area. 

Among the objects already brought to light by these explorations are 
seventeen skulls of monkeys, with the jaws and teeth in many instances 
still perfect; the head of a gigantic specimen of the swine species; four 
complete skeletons of the rhinoceros, the skull of a pachydermous animal 
larger than the rhinoceros, the jaws being remarkable for possessing six- 
teen large molar tecth; the head of a Mastodon, with the incipient germs 
of the molars and tusks; a skeleton, nearly perfect, of the Dinotherium, 
the most gigantic of known fossil animals, its tibia measuring a fift 
more in length than that of the Ohio Dfastodon ; the principal bones of a 
huge fowl of the gallinaceous order; and, finally, the skeleton of two kinds 
of giraffes, one similiar to the living species, the other less slender, together 
with bones of antelopes, turtles, and many other animals. Of these fossils, 
forty-one cases are already in the hands of geologists in Paris. 


SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCILZOLOGY.—BY A. MORLOT. 


The following article, derived from Silliman’s Journal, is an introduction 
to a paper entitled Geologico-Archzxological Studies in Denmark and Swit- 
zerland, appearing in the Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, 
for 1859. 


GEOLOGY. 321 


A century scarcely has elapsed since the time when it would have been 
thought impossible to reconstruct the history of our globe, prior to the 
appearance of mankind. But, though contemporary historians were want- 
ing during this immense pre-human era, the latter has not failed in leaving 
us a well-arranged series of most significant vestiges: the -animal and vege- 
table tribes, which have successively appeared and disappeared, have left 
their fossil remains in the successively deposited strata. Thus has been 
composed, gradually and slowly, a history of creation, written, as it were, 
by the Creator himself. It is-a great book, the leaves of which are the 
stratified rocks, following each other in the strictest chronological order, the 
chapters being the mountain chains. This great book has long been closed 
to man. But science, constantly extending its realm and improving its 
method of induction, has taught the geologist to study those marvellous 
archives of creation, and we behold him now unfolding the past ages of our 
world, with a variety of details and a certainty of conclusions well calculated 
to inspire us with grateful admiration. 

The development of archzology has been very similar to that of geology. 
Not long ago we should have smiled at the idea of reconstructing the bygone 
days of our race, previous to the first beginning of history properly so 
called. The void was filled up, partly by representing that ante-historical 
antiquity as having been only of short duration, and partly by exaggerating 
the value and the age of those vague and confused notions which constitute 
tradition. 

It seems to be with mankind at large as with single individuals. The 
recollections of our earliest childhood have entirely faded away, up to some 
particular event which had struck us more forcibly, and which alone has 
left a striking image amidst the surrounding darkness. Thus, excepting the 
idea of a deluge, which exists among so many nations, and therefore appears 
to have originated before the migration of those same nations, the infancy of 
mankind, at least in Europe, has passed without leaving any recollection, and 
history fails here entirely: for what is history but the memory of mankind ? 

But, before the beginning of history, there have been life and industry, of 
which various monuments still exist, while others lie buried in the soil, 
much as we find the organic remains of former creations entombed in the 
strata composing the crust of the globe. The memorials of antiquity enact 
here a part similar to that of the fossils; and if Cuvier calls the geologist an 
antiquarian of a new order, we can reverse that remarkable saying, and 
consider the antiquarian as a geologist, applying his method to reconstruct 
the first ages of mankind, previous to all recollection, and to work out what 
may be called pre-historical history. This is archzology pure and proper. 
But archeology cannot be considered as coming to a full stop with the first 
beginning of history. For the further we recede in our historical researches, 
the more incomplete they become, leaving gaps which the study of the 
material remains helps to fillup. Archeology, therefore, pursues its course 
in a parallel line with that of history, and henceforth the two sciences mutu- 
ally enlighten each other. But, with the progress of history, the part taken 
by archeology goes on decreasing, until the invention of printing almost 
brings to a close the researches of the antiquarian. : 

_To pursue geological investigations we must first examine the present 
state of our planet and observe its changes, that is, we must begin by physi- 
cal geography. This supplies us with a thread of induction, to guide us 
safely in our rambles through the passed ages of our earth, as Lyell has so 


322 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


admirably set forth. For the laws which govern the organic creation and 
the inorganic world are as invariable as the results of their combinations 
and permutations are infinitely varied; science revealing to us everywhere 
the perfect stability of the causes with the diversity of the forms. 

So, to understand the past ages of our species, we must first begin by 
examining its present state, following man wherever he has crossed the 
waters and set his foot upon dry land: the different nations, which inhabit 
our earth at present, must be studied with respect to their industry, their 
habits, and their general mode of life. We thus make ourselves acquainted 
with the different degrees of civilization, ranging from the highest summit. 
of modern development to the most abject state, hardly surpassing that of 
the brute. By that means ethnography supplies us with what may be called 
a contemporaneous scale of development, the stages of which are more 
or less fixed and invariable, whilst archeology traces a scale of successive 
development, with one movable stage passing gradually along the whole 
line. 

Ethnography is, consequently, to archeology what physical geography is 
to geology, namely, a thread of induction in the labyrinth of the past, and 
a starting point in those comparative researches of which the end is the 
knowledge of mankind and of its development through successive genera- 
tions. 

In following out the principles above laid down, the Scandinavian savans 
have succeeded in unraveiling the leading features in the progress of pre- 
historical European civilization, and in distinguishing three principal eras, 
which they have called the stone-age, the bronze-age, and the tron-age. 

The earliest settlers in Europe apparently brought with them the art of 
producing fire. By striking iron-pyrites (sulphuret of iron) against quartz, 
fire can be easily obtained. But this method can only have been occasion- 
ally used, and seems to be now confined to some native tribes in Terra 
del Fuego. The usual mode had evidently been that of rubbing two sticks 
together. But on further reflection it is easy to perceive that this was a 
most difficult discovery, and must at all events have been preceded by a 
knowledge of the use of fire, as derived from the effects of lightning or from 
volcanic action. 

The stone-age was, therefore, probably preceded by a period, perhaps of 
some length, during which man was unacquainted with the art of producing 
fire. This, according to Mr. Flourens, indicates that the cradle of mankind 
was situated in a warm climate. 

The art of producing fire has been perhaps the greatest achievement of 
human intelligence. The use of fire lies at the root of almost every species 
of industry. It enables the savage to fell trees, as it allows civilized nations 
to work metals. Its importance is so great, that deprived of it man would 
perhaps scarcely have risen above the condition of the brute. Even the 
ancients were sensible of this, as is witnessed by the fable of Prometheus. 
As to their sacred perpetual fire, its origin seems to lie in the difficulty of 
procuring fire, thereby rendering its preservation essential. 

In Europe the stone-age came to an end by the introduction of bronze. 
This metal is an alloy of about nine parts of copper and one part of tin.) It 


1 Bronze is still used for casting beils, cannon, and certain portions of machinery. 
It must not be confounded with common brass, which is a compound of copper and 
zinc, much less hard, and appearing only in the iron-age. 


GEOLOGY. 323 


melts and moulds well; the molten mass in cooling slowly acquires a tolera- 
ble degree of hardness, inferior to that of steel, it is true, but superior to that 
of very pure iron. We therefore understand how bronze would long be used 
for manufacturing cutting-instruments, weapons, and numerous personal 
ornaments. The northern antiquaries have very properly called this second 
great phase in the development of European civilization the bronze-age. 

The bronze articles of this period, with a few trifling exceptions, have not 
been produced by hammering, but have been regularly cast, often with a 
considerable degree of skill. Even the sword-blades were cast, and the 
hammer (of stone) was only used to impart a greater degree of hardness to 
the edge of the weapon. 

The bronze-age has therefore witnessed a mining industry, which was 
completely wanting during the stone-age. Now the art of mining is so 
essential to civilization, that without it the world would perhaps yet be 
exclusively inhabited by savages. It is then worth our while to inquire 
more closely into the origin of bronze. 

Copper was not difficult to obtain. In the first place, virgin copper is not 
particularly scarce. Then, the different kinds of ore which contain copper 
combined with other elements are either highly colored, or present a marked 
metallic appearance, and are consequently easily known; they are besides 
not hard to smelt, so as to separate the metal. Finally, copper ore is not 
at all scarce; it is met with in the older geological series of most countries. 

Virgin tin is unknown, but tin ore is heavy, of dark color, and very easy 
to smelt. However frequent copper may be, tin is of rare occurrence. Thus 
the only mines in Europe which produce tin at the present day are those of 
Cornwall in England, and of the Erzgebirge and Fitchtelgebirge in Germany. 

But the question arises whether, previous to the discovery of bronze, man, 
owing to the great rarity of tin, may not have begun by using copper ina 
pure state. Ifso, there would have been a copper-age between the stone-age 
and the bronze-age. 

In America this has been really the case. When discovered by the Span- 
iards, both the two centres of civilization, Mexico and Peru, had bronze, 
composed of copper and tin, and used it for manufacturing arms and 
cutting-instruments in the absence of iron and steel, which were unknoWn in 
the New World. But the admirable researches of Messrs. Squier and Davis 
in the antiquities of the Mississippi valley have brought to light an ancient 
civilization of a remarkable nature, and distinguished by the use of raw 
virgin copper, worked in a cold state, by hammering, without the aid of fire. 
The reason of its being so worked lies in the nature of pure copper, which 
when melted flows sluggishly and is not very fit for casting. A peculiar 
characteristic of the metal, that of occasionally containing crystals of virgin 
silver, betrays its origin, and shows that it was brought from the neighbor- 
hood of Lake Superior. This region is still rich in metallic copper, of which 
single blocks attaining a weight of fifty tons have lately been discovered. 
There was even found at the bottom of an old mine a great mass of copper 
which the ancients had evidently been unable to raise, and which they had 
abandoned, after having cut off the projecting parts with stone hatchets. 

The date of that American copper-age is unknown. AIl we know is, that 
it must reach at least as far back as ten centuries, that space of time being 
deemed necessary for the growth of the virgin forests now flourishing upon 
the remains of this antique civilization, of which the modern Indians have 
not even retained a tradition. | 


324 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


It is, finally, worthy of remark, that the mound-builders, as the Americans 
call the race of the copper-age, seem to have immediately preceded and 
prepared the way for the Mexican civilization, destroyed by the Spaniards; 
for, in progressing southwards, a gradual transition is noticed from the 
ancient earthworks of the Mississippi valley to the more modern construc- 
tions of Mexico, as found by Cortez. 

In Europe the remains of a copper-age are wanting. Here and there a 
solitary hatchet of pure copper is found. But this can be accounted for by 
the greater frequency of copper, while tin had usually to be brought from a 
greater distance, so that its supply was more precarious. 

As Europe did not witness a regular development of a copper-age, it seems, 
according to Mr. Troyon’s very just remark, that the art of manufacturing 
bronze was brought from another quarter of the world, where it had been 
previously invented. It was most probably some region in Asia, producing 
both copper and tin, where those two metals were first brought into artificial 
combination, and where also traces of a still earlier copper-age are still likely 
to be found. 

An apparently serious objection might be started here by raising the ques- 
tion how mines could be worked without the aid of steel. This, however, is 
sufficiently explained by the fact, that the hardest rocks can be easily man- 
aged through the agency of fire. By lighting a large fire against a rock, the 
latter is rent and fissured, so as considerably to facilitate the quarrying. 
This method was frequently employed when wood was cheaper, and is even 
practised at the present day in the mines of the Rammelsberg in Germany, 
where it facilitates the working of a rock of extreme hardness. 

That metal of dingy and sorry appearance, but more truly precious than 
gold or the diamond, — iron, — at length appears, giving a wonderful impulse 
to the progressive march of mankind, and characterizing the third great 
phase in the development of European civilization, very properly called the 
tron-age. 

Our planet never produces iron in its metallic or virgin state, for the 
simple reason that it is too liable to oxidation. But among the aerolites 
there are some composed of pure iron with a little nickel, which alters 
neither the appearance nor sensibly the qualities of the metal. Thus the 
celebrated meteoric iron discovered by Pallas in Siberia was found by the 
neighboring blacksmiths to be malleable in a cold state. Meteoric iron has 
even been worked by tribes to whom the use of common iron was unknown. 
Thus Amerigo Vespucci speaks of savages near the mouth of the La Plata 
who had manufactured arrow-heads with iron derived from an aerolite. 
Such cases are certainly of rare occurrence, but they are not without their 
importance, for they explain how man may probably first have become 
acquainted with iron, and they also account for the occasional traces of iron 
in tombs of the stone-age, if indced this fact be well established. 

It is, notwithstanding, evident that the regular workings of terrestrial 
iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the commencement and 
progress of the iron-age. 

Now, iron-ore is widely diffused in most countries, but it has usually the 
look of common stones, being distinguished more by its weight than its 
color. Moreover, its smelting requires a much greater degree of heat than 
copper or tin, and this renders its production considerably more difficult 
than that of bronze. 

But, even when iron had been obtained, what groping in the dark and 


GEOLOGY. 3825 


how much accumulated experience did it not require to bring forth at will bar 
iron or steel! Chance, if chance there be, may have played a part in it. But 
as chance only favors those privileged mortals who combine a keen spirit of 
observation with serious meditation and with practical sense, the discovery 
was not less difficult or meritorious. We need not then be surprised if man 
arrived but tardily at the manufacture of iron and steel, which is still daily 
improving. 

In Carinthia traces of a most primitive method of producing iron have 
been noticed. The process seems to have been as follows: on the declivity 
of a hill was dug an excavation, in which was lighted a large fire; when 
this began to subside, fragments of very pure ore (hydrous-oxide) were 
thrown into it and covered by a new heap of wood. When all the fuel had 
been consumed, small lumps of iron would then be found among the ashes. 
All blowing apparatus was in this manner dispensed with; an important fact 
when we come to consider how much the use of a blast complicates metal- 
lurgical operations, because it implies the application of mechanics. Thus 
certain tribes in Southern Africa, although manufacturing iron and working 
it tolerably well, have not achieved the construction of our common kitchen 
bellows, apparently so simple; they blow laboriously through a tube, or by 
means of a bladder affixed to it. 

The Romans produced iron by the so-called Catalonian process, and the 
remains of Roman works of that description have been discovered and 
investigated in Upper Carniola in Austria. The Catalonian forge is still 
used in the Pyrenees, where it yields tolerable results, but it consumes a 
large quantity of charcoal, requires much wind, and is only to be applied to 
pure ore, containing but a very small proportion of earthy matter producing 
scoriz: for the process consists in a mere reduction, with a soldering and 
welding together of the reduced particles, without the metal properly melt- 
ing. According to the manner in which the operation is conducted, bar 
iron or steel are obtained at will. This direct method dispenses with the 
intermediate production of cast iron, which was unknown to the ancients, 
and which is now the only means of producing iron on a great scale. 

Silver accompanies the introduction of iron into Europe, at least in the 
northern parts, while gold was already known during the bronze-age. This 
is natural, for gold is generally found as a pure metal, while silver has 
usually to be extracted from different kinds of ore by more or less compli- 
cated metallurgical operations, — for example, by cupellation. 

With iron appear also, for the first time in Europe, glass, coined money, 
that powerful agent of commerce, and finally the alphabet, which, as the 
money of intelligence, vastly increases the activity and circulation of thought, 
and is sufficient of itself to characterize a new and wonderful era of progress. 
From thence can we date the dawn of history and of science, in particular of 
astronomy. 

The fine arts also reveal, with the introduction of iron in Europe, a new 
and important element, indicating a striking advance. Already in the 
stone-age, but more in the bronze-age, the natural taste for art reveals itself 
in the ornaments bestowed upon pottery and metallic objects. These orna- 
ments consist in dots, circles, and zigzag, spiral, and S-shaped lines, the style 
bearing a geometrical character, but showing pure taste and real beauty of 
its kind, although devoid of all delineations of animated objects, either in 
the shape of plants or animals. It is only with the iron-age that art, taking 
a higher range, rose to the representation of plants, animals, and even of the 

28 


326 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


human frame. No wonder, then, if idols of the bronze-age, as well as of the 
stone-age, are wanting in Europe. It is to be presumed that the worship of 
fire, of the sun, and of the moon, was prevalent in remote antiquity, at least 
during the bronze-age, perhaps also during the stone-age. 

The preceding remarks constitute a sketch, certainly very rough and 
imperfect, of the development of civilization. They establish, however, in a 
striking manner, the fact of a progress, slow, but interrupted and immense, 
when the starting-point is considered. The physical constitution of man has 
naturally benefited by it. The details contained in the treatise, of which 
the present paper forms the introduction, prove that the human race has 
been gradually gaining in vigor and strength since the remotest antiquity. 
The domestic races also, the dog first, then the horse, the ox, the sheep, 
have shared in this physical development. Even the vegetable soil has been 
gradually improving since the stone-age, at least in Denmark. 


ON THE GEOLOGICAL AGE OF MAN. 


Both the literary and scientific journals of Europe published during the 
past year abound with correspondence and articles on the vexed question, 
which is now engaging the attention of geologists, viz. the origin of the flint 
implements found in connection with the fossil remains of extinct animals 
in the drift, and in the so-called bone-caverns. In former volumes of the 
Annual of Scientific Discovery, a full and popular account has been given of 
all the points of interest in regard to the subject, which had (up to date) 
been brought before the public; and in the present article we present our 
readers with a resumé of the principal transactions, in regard to the same 
topic, that have been brought to our notice during the past year. — Ep. 

We would first call attention to the following letter, sent to the editor 
of the London Atheneum, by Mr. J. A. Worsaac, the well-known northern 
antiquarian, of Copenhagen. 

After alluding to the lack of general information respecting the discoveries 
of antiquarians in Denmark and other countries, he observes : — 

At the last meeting of the British Association, Sir Charles Lyell, in his 
opening address to the Section of Geology, mentioned a large Indian mound 
at Cannon’s Point on St. Simon’s Island, in Georgia, “ten acres in area, and 
having an average height of five feet, chiefly composed of cast-away oyster- 
shells, throughout which arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian pottery are 
dispersed.”’ Now, exactly similar mounds have been seen on the coast of 
Denmark, especially in the Kattegat and its “fiords” or bays. They have 
been examined by the well-known naturalists, Professors Steenstrup and 
Forchhammer, and by myself, as members of a committee appointed for 
the purpose by the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, and have been found to 
contain myriads of cast-away shells of various common species, mixed up 
with broken bones of stags, deer, of Bos urus, beaver, wild boar, etc., together 
with charcoal, ashes, burnt stones, pieces of very coarse pottery, rude hateh- 
ets, spear-heads, knives, arrow-heads, flakes or chips, chipping-blocks, ete., 
of flint, a sort of hatchets or hammers made of stag’s horn, different imple- 
ments of bone, and very simple ornaments of bone, etc. Traces of such 
mounds have been discovered, in the course of ten years, in at least fifty 
different places near the sea-coasts of Denmark, and the descriptions of 
most of them have been inserted in the Proceedings of our Royal Academy. 
It is quite evident that the greater part of the bones of animals found among 


GEOLOGY. 527 


the shells have been broken according to a certain system, — most probably 
for getting out the marrow. The committee, without knowing of the Indian 
mound described by Sir Charles Lyell, unanimously came to the conclusion 
(1849-50) that the mounds in Denmark indicated the places where the abo- 
rigines used constantly to eat their meals. 

The implements of bone and stone discovered in these mounds are mostly 
of the same forms, and of the very rudest description. The implements of 
flint are in general neither ground nor polished; they present, even, quite 
peculiar simple forms, different from the forms of the common hatchets and 
implements of the stone-age. At the commencement, when we only knew 
afew such mounds, I believed these differences of forms to be accidental, and 
I ascribed, accordingly, the mounds with their rude implements of flint to 
the same period as the common stone implements, and the large tombs, 
stone-chambers, or cromlechs of the stone-age. 

But two years ago, in comparing the many flints from the mounds with 
the still more numerous flints from the cromlechs, I discovered that several 
of the rudest flint implements of the mounds never appear in the cromlechs 
or graves of the stone-age; and, on the other hand, that a great many of the 
highly finished or polished stones of the cromlechs never are to be found in 
the mounds. In Lectures delivered at the University of Copenhagen (1857), 
I tried to show that the rude flint implements of the mounds were exactly 
like some other rude and undoubtedly extremely old flint implements found 
in great abundance in different places on the sea-shores of Denmark, and 
also in Schonen, at the bottom of old bogs, which now are, and which 
probably for thousands of years have been, covered with large hills of 
gravel, clay, and sand, as well as remarkably like the rude hatchets, and 
other implements of flint, discovered under circumstances pointing to a very 
high antiquity, in different bone-caves in England and France, and in the 
gravel-pits at Abbeville and Amiens. Of these implements I had seen some 
at Abbeville, in the museum of M. Boucher de Perthes, who also afterwards, 
when more of them had been found, with great liberality forwarded several 
specimens for comparison to our Royal Museum of Northern Antiquities at 
Copenhagen. I extended my comparison to the implements of the very 
rudest savage tribes of America and the South Sea, preserved in different 
museums, and I came to the result, that the peculiarly formed, very rude 
flint implements of the mounds of Denmark, and of the bone-caves and 
gravel-pits of England and France, must belong to an earlier time of the 
stone-age than the cromlechs or large stone chambers; and that they, per- 
haps, are to be ascribed to some peculiar savage tribes, who were the real 
aborigines of the North and West of Europe, and who afterwards must have 
been subdued by more powerful, more advanced tribes, of whom the beauti- 
fully-finished stone implements, and the very remarkable, sometimes quite 
astonishing, stone chambers, or cromlechs, are speaking memorials. Last 
spring, at a meeting of the Royal Academy, I further explained this new 
subdivision of the stone-age, which was preceded by an equally new subdi- 
vision of the bronze-age. Six months ago I had succeeded in establishing a 
subdivision of the iron-age, in such a way that we, according to my opinion, 
now are enabled, for the Pagan time alone, to point out six different great 
periods of civilization in Denmark, and I dare say in a good many other 
countries of Europe. 

This new system, however, especially the division of the stone-age, was natu- 
rally opposed by several antiquaries. When, a few months after, the news of 


328 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the discoveries in the Brixham cave, and the recent researches in the gravel- 
pits at Abbeville and Amiens, suddenly arrived, I was agreeably surprised 
at seeing the opinion of the very high antiquity of the rude stone implements 
found there, fully corroborated by the authority of eminent French and 
English naturalists and antiquaries; and I derived equally great satisfaction 
from the unanimous declaration of all the different writers in this case, that 
the flint pieces from the gravel and the caves are much unlike the common 
implements of the stone-age in France and England; and that they evidently 
are forming quite a peculiar class. Some remarks of Mr. Evans, in his 
paper communicated to the Society of Antiquaries of London “On the 
Occurrence of Flint Instruments in undisturbed Beds of Gravel, both on the 
Contir.ent and in England,” where he speaks about the pointed and oval, or 
almond-shaped implements of flint, “all indisputably worked by the hand 
of man, and not indebted for their shape to any natural configuration or 
peculiar fracture of the flint,’ attracted, in the highest degree, my attention. 
“They present,” he says, ‘no analogy in form to the well-known imple- 
ments of the so-called Celtic or stone period, which, moreover, have for the 
most part some portion, if not the whole, of their surface ground or polished, 
and are frequently made from other stones than flint. Those from the drift 
are, on the contrary, never ground, and are exclusively of flint. They have, 
indeed, every appearance of having been fabricated by another race of men, 
who, from the fact that the Celtic stone weapons have been found in the 
superficial soil, above the drift containing these ruder weapons, as well as 
from other considerations, must have inhabited this region of the globe at a 
period anterior to its so-called Celtic occupation.” 

It certainly is a very remarkable coincidence, that Mr. Evans here, without 
any connection with me, and without knowing my newly-started theories 
about the subdivisions of the different ages, is using exactly the same argu- 
ments, and nearly the same words, with which I, two years ago, tried to add 
a subdivision of the stone-age to my other proposed divisions of the bronze 
and the iron ages. 

The flint implements of the drift and the bone-caves are no longer left 
“without any standard of comparison.” We have plenty of such objects, 
hundreds, and even thousands, found in the said artificial mounds, in lakes, 
bozs, and on the sea-shores of Denmark, in the closest connection with 
antiquities of such a kind, that no man, not even the most prejudiced, 
should venture to ascribe the origin of them to a natural cause, to “ motion 
in water.” 

The great quantity of flint implements found in the drift in the valley of 
the Somme in France — more than a thousand in the last ten years, In an 
area of fifteen miles in length — has been used as an argument against their 
being implements at all. But it must be borne in mind, that the aborigines, 
as naturally was to be expected, for the sake of fishing, lived near the sea- 
shore, the rivers, and lakes, and that they on the very spots where they wan- 
dered about, undoubtedly, very often through many centuries, manufactured 
their rude implements of flint, —a material which resists the influence of 
time. We, therefore, have the right beforehand of supposing a great num- 
ber of stone implements to be found in such localities, and the truth of this 
supposition has also been completely confirmed by many most curious facts, 
which have been observed both in Europe and in America. 

For instance, in the neighborhood, of Pittsburg, Penn., on the borders 
of the river Delaware, such a number of stone implements were found, 


GEOLOGY. °329 


that from one locality several hundred arrow-heads and other implements 
of stone could be sent over to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries 
here. A distinguished Danish naturalist, —Dr. Lund,—who for many 
years has been residing in Brazil, mentions, in a letter to the said society, 
that the borders of the small lake Lagoa Santa, at the time when the Euro- 
peans first came to that part of Brazil, were all scattered over with hatchets 
of stone, proving that this spot had been a favorite one for the aboriginal 
inhabitants. 

To these observations I could add a great many similar from the sea- 
coasts of the Continent, from larger and smaller Islands, as well as from the 
borders of lakes in the north of Europe, where rude flint implements in great 
abundance have been discovered. But I will only mention here, that in 
Denmark, in the island of Laaland, Mr. de Wichfeld and myself have been 
fortunate enough lately to collect in the course of a few weeks, in one locality, 
more than a thousand extremely rude flint implements, exactly like those 
from our oyster-mounds, and very similar to those found in the grayvel-pits 
and bone-caves in France and England. They were lying spread partly at 
the borders of the small lake of Maribo, partly on small islands or holms in 
the lake, where some traces of pile-work (probably even older than that dis- 
covered in the lakes of Switzerland), for the first time in this country, have 
been found, and partly in the lake itself, in the very water near the borders. 
The lake has a length of five or six English miles, and a breadth of one or 
one and a half miles, and hitherto only one of the sides of the lake has been 
searched. The number of flint implements discovered here in a few weeks 
surpasses, comparatively, the quantity of similar implements found in ten 
years in the vailey of the Somme. 

A most interesting circumstance with this sare remarkable find in the 
lake of Maribo is, that we have some reason to believe that the lake in the 
aboriginal time, perhaps, may have had another niveau than now, as there 
are to be seen in the lake.standing roots of fir-trees, which formerly must 
have stood on dry, or at least on boggy ground. Several other circum- 
stances from the same lake, and from different localities in Schonen and in 
Jiitland, where the rudest stone implements have been discovered, make it 
very probable that our country, as well as England and France, must have 
undergone considerable geological changes, at least in some parts, and at a 
very remote time, when the poor savage aborigines wandered about on the 
sea-coasts, and on the borders of lakes and rivers, with their miserable imple- 
ments of flint and bone. 

l offer these comparative remarks in the hope that they may throw some 
light upon the great and important question of the day, — the question about 
the antiquity of the human race. I fully agree with Sir C. Lyell, “that the 
evidence is very strong in favor of a very high antiquity,” as there really is 
no reason to doubt that true implements of flint, works of human art, fre- 
quently have been found in the drift with bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, 
and other extinct animals. I feel convinced that we are at the commence- 
ment of some of the most remarkable discoveries which have been lately 
made, and which certainly will have a great influence upon the further 
rapid progress of national archeology on the whole, and also upon its 
emancipation from old and new prejudices, and from so-called historical 
theories. 

First Inhabitants of Switzerland. — Curious discoveries have recently been 
made of various stone instruments and other relics of an ancient and un- 

28* 


330° ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


known people, near the shores of several lakes in Switzerland and France. 
The Revue Archeologique of Paris noticed the first discoveries in 1854-55, 
and the January number of 1860 gives the results of later researches, with 
drawings of fifteen kinds of tools, weapons, ete., which have been found by 
hundreds. They have edges and points of stone, with handles of deers’ 
horns, and have been preserved by being covered with water and the depos- 
its of earth. Remains of piles and rough planks have been dug out, in 
railroad excavations, which have led the best archxologists to the following 
conclusions: there wasa people who inhabited at least that part of Europe 
long before the historic period, who had no metals, and used stones, and 
sometimes bones, for tools, ornaments, implements, and weapons of various 
kinds, with deers’ horns for handles to such as needed them. Some of these 
ancient people lived in small communities, in houses built on platforms of 
plank resting on piles, extending from the shores of lakes some distance 
over the water, from which they doubtless drew fish for their subsistence; 
but they had also a variety of other food. Specimens of pottery are found, 
generally cylindrical, and some with round bases, without feet; some have 
two holes for suspending them. Small bowls have been found, made of 
deers’ horns. The numerous bones of animals discovered afford an interest- 
ing study of the fauna of the country at the remotest period of which there 
are any traces. 

More recent lake habitations of the same kind have been found, where 
instruments of copper were found mingled with those of stone; and there 
are indications that the race which introduced the copper (probably Celts) 
conquered the original inhabitants. 

M. Gastalde has recently communicated to the Academy of Sciences at 
Turin an account of an exploration of a large peat moor, in the neighbor- 
hood of Lake Maggiore, in Northern Italy, made in connection with Professor 
Desor, of Neufchatel, to ascertain whether it contained any traces of sub- 
aqueous structures, such as have been found since 1854 in some of the lakes 
in Switzerland. Although unsuccessful in this respect, they found several 
fragments of pottery, and a canoe made of the trunk of a tree, all imbedded 
in peat, at the depth of a metre (thirty-nine inches). The antiquity assigned 
by the discoverers to these fragments, judging from the uniform accumulation 
of so great an amount of peat above the canoe, is at least one hundred years 
before the foundation of Rome. 

On the Flint Implements found in the Drift.—TIn a paper read before the 
Geological Society, London, June, 1860, by Mr. Mackie, F. G. S., on the 
above subject, the author pointed out the evidence which exists that the 
flints thus found are worked by the hand of men, alluding especiaily to the 
uniform characteristics which are to be observed in the manner in which 
the flints, wherever discovered, are trimmed. This trimming is peculiar, and 
its constant recurrence negatives the inference that it could have been pro- 
duced by any ordinary geological causes. He then dwelt upon the positions 
in which the flints have been found, from which it was apparent that they 
are, whatever their age may be, of the same age as the drift in which they 
are imbedded, and are in every sense of the word fossil. Mr. Mackie then 
noticed the flint flakes which have been discovered, and showed clearly that 
the peculiar uniform shape of these can be accounted. for only on the suppo- 
sition that they have been chipped off some larger block in a regular man- 
ner, and with some definite purpose. He pointed out the great geographical 
area over which these flints have been observed, and then adyerted to the 


i hs 


—_— —_ 


GEOLOGY. Sok 


possible uses to which they may have been put. He discarded the supposi- 
tion that they were ‘‘ celts,” pointing out that a celt is radically different in 
form, being sharp at the wide and blunt at the narrow end, which is exactly 
opposite to what is observed in the implements under discussion. In fact a 
eelt is a chisel, while these flints have apparently been used as weapons of 
offence, and were probably arrow-heads. The author mentioned the fact of 
an injury having been detected by Professor Owen in the fossil bone of an 
Irish ell, and pointed out the possible connection between such injuries and 
the implements under examination. 

In a paper communicated to Blackwood’s Magazine for October, 1860, under 
the title of ““The Reputed Traces of Man Primeval,’ by Prof. Henry D. 
Rogers, of the University of Glasgow, the whole subject of the occurrence 
of the flint implements in the drift is ably reviewed, and all the adjunct 
circumstances connected therewith clearly stated. ‘They occur,” says 
Professor R., who has personally*made a scientific examination of the 
localities, “‘in not inconsiderable numbers in the gravel-quarries or sand- 
pits of Abbeville and Amiens, and also at a few spots bordering on the 
wide valley of the river Somme, more sparsely on the Seine, at Paris, and 
at one locality in England, namely, Hoxne, in Suffolk. It is estimated that 
the total number of these ‘worked flints’ exhumed since their first detec- 
tion by their eminent discoverer, M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, some 
twenty years ago, exceeds fifteen hundred, and may even approach two 
thousand specimens.”’ 

“A preliminary conviction of the existence of the remains of antediluvian 
man induced M. de Perthes to labor ten years subsequent to 1838 in search 
of them, and though he found no human bones (which, we may remark, 
might have been preserved as well as the osseous structure of the extinct 
animals in the diluvium), he did strike upon these artificially shaped 
flints having marks of human origin. Of these, it appears, he published 
an elaborate description in 1847, which attracted but little notice until 
his deductions were approved by M. Rigollot, who, in a pamphlet, recanted 
his previous scepticism, and expressed his agreement with the conclusions 
of M. de Perthes. Other learned geologists in France and England fol- 
lowed on the same side, among them Joseph Prestwich, who, in 1859, 
read a paper on the subject before the Royal Society of London, and 
J. W. Flower, who submitted in the same year to the Geological Society a 
report on a flint implement discovered at the base of some beds of drift 
gravel and brick earth at St. Acheul, near Amiens. The wrought flint here 
referred to (which is figured in Blackwood) was found by the author lying 
at the depth of sixteen feet from the surface, and about eighteen inches from 
the face of the quarry, to which extent the gravel had been removed. 

“The embedding structure, or place of sepulture, of the wrought flints, 
reologically regarded, is,’’ says Professor Rogers, “for Abbeville, Amiens, 
and the other localities on the Somme, a rudely deposited, irregularly strewn 
bed of somewhat fragmentary chalk-flint, containing some flint-sand, a little 
pulverized chalk, and occasional large blocks or boulders, of a hard quartzose 
Eocene sandstone. This evidently diluvial matrix, the repository also of 
the bones of gigantic mammalian quadrupeds, rests directly on a some- 
what uneven and eroded floor of chalk, out of the wreck of the upper beds 
of which stratum the nodules of flint forming the greater part of the gravel 
have been derived. It is overlaid in its turn by no less than three other 
strata, of aqueous origin, but all formed under dissimilar conditions. 


$32 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


“First above the bone and hatchet entombing gravel lies a grayish-white 
and brownish sand, imbedding several species of fresh-water and terrestrial 
shells, identical with species now living in this part of the globe. Though 
fine-grained, these sands bear the marks of a rather brief process of dep- 
osition, for portions of them are unusualiy angular, or unworn in the 
grain, and their lamingz in many places bend and wave to conform to the 
greatly eroded and undulating floor of the gravel on which they repose. 
Solitary specimens of the worked flints are, on rare occasions, met with in 
the lower part of these sands, and also, as rarely, the bones of the fossil 
elephant. 

“Third in ascending order above the chalk occurs a second gravel, com- 
posed exclusively of chalk-flints in a rolled and more or less fractured condi- 

‘tion. This bed, varying in thickness, at St. Acheul, near Amiens, from two 

to five feet, exhibits conspicuously at this locality the marks of having been 
deposited or pushed along in very turbulent waters; for its lower boun- 
dary, beheld in section at the gravel-pits, shows a succession of sharply- 
conical, and somewhat spiral, deep depressions in the upper surface of 
the sand beneath it, identical in every feature with the funnel-shaped pits 
bored by any strong, swiftly-eddying current in a yielding bottom of mud 
or sand. 

“Fourth, and uppermost in the series of loose beds, is a brown brick-earth 
or ferruginous sandy clay or loam, interspersed with numerous small splin- 
ters of chalk-flint. At St. Acheul, and elsewhere near Amiens, where it is 
used extensively for conversion into bricks, this loam, which is but faintly 
laminated, is generally about three or four feet thick. Like the torrential 
gravel on which it rests, it is destitute not only of mammalian organic 
remains, but of the curious instruments in flint associated with them in the 
lowermost of the four superficial deposits. It does enclose some remains of 
another sort, which, when viewed in their relations to the vestiges of man 
beneath them, never fail greatly to impress the bcholder by the contrasts 
they suggest in time and the state of human art. These are numerous 
Roman graves, or rather regularly-shaped stone coffins, of unquestioned 

toman antiquity, oftentimes containing the skeletons of their inmates in a 
firm and well-conserved state. When the student of time, deciphering these 
four successive chapters in the physical history of our globe, drops his gaze 
from these tombs, — which descend but a small yard below the grass, yet 
take him back through almost one-third of the usually imagined lifetime of 
the world, — and lets his vision, pausing at intervals upon the monuments 
of alternate past ages of repose and epochs of turbulent floods, rest at last, 
some twelve or sixteen feet lower in the earth, on a physical record, to him 
as expressive as the graves above, of the past existence, near the same spot, 
of arace of men unacquainted with the metals, — what wonder, with his 
critical spirit prostrated before his imagination, that he should forget to 
scrutinize the evidence, and should quit the ground with the sentiment which 
he confounds with a logical conviction of the vastness of the ages covered by 
the record? His inquisitiveness keenly aroused by this impression, he inter- 
rogates afresh the pages of this stony register for other and more palpable 
proofs of the human beings, and the extreme age indicated in the objects he 
has beheld; and perplexcd at the total absence of any traces of man himsclf, 
—of even a single human tooth, or fragment of a human bone, where other 
teeth and other bones no better capable of preservation are of common 
eccurrence, — he withdraws a second time from the scene, cogitating many 


GEOLOGY. 38393 


doubts, and at last, under the suggestions of a philosophical scepticism, — 
the only right mood for analyzing the apparently contradictory evidence 
before him, — he asks himself the following questions: Are the flint-imple- 
ments——these imputed products of man’s skill—actually the work of 
human hands? Again, though they and the mammalian bones, held to be 
distinctive of the diluvium, do lie entombed together, does this demonstrate 
that the once owners of each— the men who left the flints, and the animals 
who possessed the bones — also lived together in the same epoch? Admitting 
that they were contemporary, how far does this fact of itself establish the 
great antiquity of the human race? 

“And, lastly, apart altogether from the proofs of age, deduced from the 
association of the human relics with the remains of the extinct quadrupeds, 
what is the geological evidence of the extreme agedness of both in the 
nature of the deposits of sand, gravel, and brick-earth placed above them, 
and in the intimations these give us of the time occupied in their formation ? 

“Such are the more prominent queries suggested by the phenomena, and 
such, indeed, the actual questions asked every day of the scientific observer, 
by intelligent readers of the still very fragmentary literature relating to this 
new and strange archzologic problem.” 

In regard to the first question, Are the so-called flint implements really the 
result of human workmanship? Professor Rogers states that there can be no 
reasonable doubt upon the subject; and that it is now admitted, by almost 
every scientific man who has examined them, that they bear unmistakable 
evidence of having been shaped artificially. 

In regard to the inquiry, Does the mere association in the same deposit of 
the flint implements and the bones of extinct quadrupeds prove that the 
artificers of the flint tools and the animals coéxisted in time? Professor 
Rogers answers: ‘‘That mere juxtaposition of itself is no evidence of con- 
temporaneity; and that, upon the testimony of the fossil bones, the age of 
the human relics is not proven.” 

“Tt is sometimes asked by persons uninitiated in geology, and who have 
not examined the diluvium and superficial gravel, if the ‘wrought flints’ 
may not belong to historic times, and have insinuated themselves downwards 
from the soil into the stratum which now entombs them by mere force of 
incessantly acting gravity, either through chinks in the over-resting deposits, 
or between their fragments and particles. Preposterous as this question seems 
to the geologist or to the practical excavator of the subsoil, it is so often and 
so constantly advanced that it demands an answer; and our reply is, that a 
few minutes’ inspection of the beds containing and overlying the flint-imple- 
ments of the Somme will assure any observer that they are entirely destitute 
of the imagined crevices, and are, moreover, altogether too compact and 
immovable to admit of any such insinuation or percolation ef surface objects. 
The gravel is, indeed, so firm, that a live mole, with all his admirable appli- 

nees for burrowing, could not possibly enter it; so firmly imbedded, that 
the workmen use heavy iron picks to disintegrate the half-cemented mate- 
rials.” 

To the query, What is the antiquity of the mammalian bones with which 
flint-implements are associated? Professor Rogers’ answer is, “‘ that, apart 
from their mixture with the recently-discovered vestiges of an early race of 
men, these fossils exhibit no independent marks by which we can relate 
them to human time at all. Let us admit that the wrought fiints are truly 
contemporary with the animals whose bones lie side by side with them, and 


334 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


that the deposit embedding both is the general diluvium, or mammalian 
drift; do these facts of themselves determine the flints to have been fashioned 
in an age preceding the usually assigned birth of man? Logically, it must 
be conceded, they do not; for, independent of the absence or presence of 
these or other vestiges of man in the diluvium, its antiquity or relation to 
historic time is obviously not ascertainable. Apart from human relics in or 

ver or under the drift, how can we link it on to historic time at all? Before 
the discovery of the flint-implements in this superficial formation, or so 
long as the traces of men were known only in deposits later than the dilu- 
vium, it was deemed to belong to an age antecedent to the creation of man, 
and had, therefore, a relatively high antiquity assigned to it; but now, grant- 
ing that relics of men have been authenticated as buried in it, is it sound 
reasoning, we would ask, to infer for these relics the very antiquity which 
was only attributable to the diluvium because it was believed destitute of all 
such human vestiges? The diluvium of geologists has, since the days of 
the illustrious Cuvier, been always looked upon as something very ancient, 
simply because he and his successors, finding it replete with the remains of 
huge land mammals no longer living, never succeeded in detecting in ita 
solitary bone or tooth of a human being, nor, indeed, anything indicative of 
man’s existence; but now that things indicative of man have been found, it 
is surely illogical, and a begging of the very question itself, to impute an age 
incompatible with the fact of his then existing. 

““ As matters now stand, is it not as rational to infer the relative recency of 
the extinct Hlephas primigenius, and the other mammals of the diluvium, 
from the coéxistence of the works of men with them, on the ground that the 
human is a living and modern race, as it is to deduce the antiquity of man 
from the once erroneously assumed greater age of those animals? I would 
repeat, then, that a specially remote age is not attributable to the flint-carving 
men of the diluvium, simply because it is the diluvium, or mammoth-embed- 
ding gravel, which contains them. If their association with these extinct 
mammals does intimate a long pre-historic antiquity, the evidences of this 
are to be sought in some of the other attendant phenomena. 

“The age, therefore, of the diluvium which encloses the remains of the 
extinct mammalian animals must now be viewed as doubly uncertain, — 
doubtful from the uncertainty of its coincidence with the age of flint-imple- 
ments; and, again, doubtful, even if this coincidence were established, from 
the absence of any link of connection between those earliest traces of man 
and his historic ages.” 

As regards the question involved in this inquiry, What lapse of ages has it 
demanded to alter the surface of the globe, where these remains are found, 
from a state especially suited to the extinct antediluvian races, into that now 
prevailing? the data are altogether too indeterminate to admit of anything 
approaching a definite answer. ‘‘ As in every other attempt to interrogate 
Geology, her response is Sybilline. She has two classes of votaries: one, 
entitled the Uniformitarian school, or Quietists, who, interpreting the past 
changes in the earth’s surface by the natural forces, especially the gentler 
ones now in operation, overlook the more energetic and promptly-acting 
ones; and another, the school of the Catastrophisis, perhaps more fitly 
defined the Paroxrysmists, who, blind in the opposite eye, see only the most 
vehement energies of nature,—the earthquake and the inundation, —and 
take no account of the softer but unceasingly efficient agencies which gradu- 


GEOLOGY. 855 


aily depress or lift the land, or silently erode and reconstruct it. By each of 
these her answers as to time are difjerentiy interpreted.” 

“Tn conclusion, then, of the whole inquiry,” says Professor Rogers, “‘ con- 
densing into one expression my answer to the general question, Whether a 
remote pre-historic antiquity for the human race has been established from 
the recent discovery of specimens of man’s handiwork in the so-called dilu- 
vium, I maintain it is not proven; by no means asserting that it can be 
disproved, but insisting simply that it remains not proven.” 

On some Bronze Relics from the Auriferous Sands of Siberia. — At a recent 
meeting of the London Geological Society, Mr. T. W. Atkinson, the well- 
known Asiatic traveller, stated, that during his stay at the gold mine on the 
River Shargan, in Siberia (latitude 59° 30’ north, and longitude 96° 10/ east), 
in August, 1851, some fragments of worked bronze were dug up by the work- 
men, at a depth of fourteen feet eight inches below the surface, from a bed 
of sand in which gold nuggets occur. This sand rests on the rock, and is 
covered by beds of gravel and sand, overlain by two feet of vegetable soil. 
The fragments appear to have belonged either to a bracelet or to some horse- 
trappings. This paper was discussed with great interest, as it tended to 
prove the existence of man, in a tolerably advanced condition of civilization, 
before the deposition of the strata containing the bones of the great mam- 
malia. From the evidence collected by Mr. Atkinson, there was no doubt 
that the fragments were discovered in the situation exhibited in the drawings, 
which he made on the spot, and neither he nor the officers of the mines 
detected any appearance of disturbance in the superincumbent strata. It 
did not, however, appear that any minute examination was made by any 
geologist experienced in this kind of inquiry, and the general impression was 
rather in favor of assuming that the articles must have been conveyed by 
some unknown force from a more recent stratum to that in which they were 
found, than to believe that a race, sufficiently advanced in science to make 
works of bronze, existed in Siberia at a period so enormously anterior not 
only to the pre-historic time which archeologists have investigated, but even 
to that which geologists have assigned as the probable commencement of the 
appearance of man. 

At the last meeting of the British Association, the Rev. Dr. Anderson, 
F. G. S., presented a paper, the object of which was to combat the idea that 
any of the recent geological discoveries can in truth carry back the creation 
of man to a period anterior to that assigned by the Mosaic chronology. He 
classifies into three divisions the cases which are relied upon by those who 
maintain the very remote antiquity of the human race. The first of these 
comprises the instances in which human relics have been found, thickly 
incrusted in a matrix of stony matter, in the calcareous breccias and strata 
now in process of formation. There is, he contends, no evidence whatever 
that the relics discovered in such situations as these were deposited at a 
comparatively recent period. Instances are of not unfrequent occurrence, 
especially on the southeast coast of England, in which flints are found 
enclosing coins, fragments of bolts, anchors, etc., and other human relics, 
the stony covering of which has so completely the aspect of true rock-sub- 
stance as to warrant at first sight the conclusion that its deposit has been the 
work of countless ages; but, on removing the flinty matrix, the coin is found 
to bear the head of an Edward, a James, or even a George, and the bolt or 
anchor to be stamped with the mark of some still-existing firm. Facts like 
these prove that the incrustation of relics deposited by a shipwreck or other- 


036 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


wise, in a sea which washes a chalk or limestone coast, is an operation 
requiring much less time than from outward appearances would generaily be 
supposed. Petrifying springs are notoriously not less rapid in their action. 
Dr. Anderson quotes an interesting and apposite instance in which operations 
are actually going on, which would be quite sufficient to account for many 
puzzling and abnormal appearances. It occurs on the coast of Fifeshire, 
between Burntisland and Aberdour, where the overhanging cliffs are thickly 
planted with trees and underwood, and deeply covered with a coating of 
calcareous breccia. In many places, branches of trees are enclosed in the 
calcareous matter, and “‘on the face of the rocky cliff a portion of a branch 
may be observed entangled in the breccia, and at the same time attached to 
its parent tree.” Now, not only may a boulder containing a branch of a 
tree be carried by the waves to a spot at a considerable distance from the 
place of its formation, but the breccia in which the branch is enclosed may 
also contain in its matrix fossil shells of a bygone period, — a juxtaposition 
of old and new, which might not improbably puzzle the observer by whom 
it was found to assign a date for its origin. 

The second division includes those cases in which human relics and works 
of art have been found in the silt of rivers, in morasses, or in the superficial 
soils of the earth. One of the most striking of these is the discovery of a 
piece of pottery in the bed of the Nile, near the ancient city of Memphis, at 
a depth of thirty feet under the lowest point of the platform on which was 
subsequently erected the colossal statue of Rameses II. When this case 
was brought before the British Association, at Leeds, the inference drawn 
from it was that the fragment must have been made at least thirteen thou- 
sand years ago. Dr. Anderson, however, disputes this conclusion, on the 
ground that the whole track of the Nile through Lower Egypt has been sub- 
ject to such successive changes of level as to render any comparison between 
the past and present rate of silt-deposit along its bed quite impossible. In 
support of this view he cites some observations made by Dr. Buist, in a 
paper on the “ Geology of Lower Egypt,” in the Bombay Journal of Science, 
which are so interesting or apposite that we cannot do better than extract 
them entire : — 

“A principle, says Dr. Buist, that seems to have been too often lost 
sight of in the formation of deltas, should be constantly kept before us. No 
delta could ever rise permanently above the surface of the inundation at all, © 
by the agency of setting up exclusively, and unless there was an upheaval 
of the land or subsidence of the water. At Cairo, the deposit of each flood 
is as thin as a sheet of drawing-paper; when this accumulation goes on till it 
has reached within a few inches of the highest inundation, it must become 
evanescent altogether. Neither Alexandria, Cairo, Calcutta, Hyderabad in 
Scinde, New Orleans on the delta of the Mississippi, nor any other deltoid 
city, could ever have found a site at all, unless by upheaval; and so with the 
sites of the villages from Cairo to the sea, and the bulk of the area of the 
delta which the Nile, even at its highest floods, now never reaches. Yet these 
are all composed of river-mud, of exactly the same description as that now 
being deposited. 

“Tf this, which is not a hypothesis, but a principle, be kept in view; and 
if it be remembered how much more rapidly mud is precipitated in stagnant 
than in running water, it will be at once seen that the rate at which alluvium 
now accumulates on deltas, merely overlaid by a shallow film from the sur- 
face of the streams, affords not the slightest grounds for drawing conclusions 


GEOLOGY. 307 


as to the time taken for the accumulation of the whole mass, laid down, as 
it must have been, under circumstances utterly unlike those now existing. 
The mud of the old delta of the Nerbudda, in Guzerat, now forming a bank 
of seventy feet in thickness, the surface of which, above Broach, twenty 
miles from the Gulf of Cambay, is thirty feet above the highest flood, divides 
into flakes of from one-fourth to one-eighth of an inch; and yet we are not 
certain that each of these may not be the deposit of a single freshet of a few 
days’ or hours’ duration, rather than the accumulation of an entire season. 

“The layers of sharp desert sand, seen in many places on the banks of the 
Nile below Cairo to alternate with the mud, may probably have been depos- 
ited on the dry surface of the soil, during some of the movements referred 
to. A descent of the land, after this had occurred, would permit the mud, 
now lying many feet in thickness over them, to be deposited without dis- 
turbing them; running water would have removed the sand, and mingled it 
with the mud. The extreme abruptness of the transition from delta silt to 
desert sand, from extreme fertility to absolute barrenness, astonishes the 
stranger; near the pyramids you may actually, and without figure, have 
one foot on arable land, and the other ankle deep in desert sand.” 

With regard to the remains found in morasses and peat-mosses, Rennie, 
in his essay “‘ On the Natural History and Origin of Peat-moss,” has shown 
that the rapidity of growth of these deposits is so great as to have produced 
an immense mass of accumulation during the time which has elapsed since 
the Roman invasion; Roman roads and causeways being frequently trace- 
able for miles among the mosses of Annandale, Lanark, and Perthshire. 
The well-known case of the Guadaloupe skeletons, which were found im- 
bedded in hard limestone, among the detritus of sand, shells, and corals, at 
the base of steep cliffs on the northéast coast of the island, and which are 
now generally considered to be those of a tribe of natives, which was slaugh- 
tered by a hostile tribe and buried on the sea-shore not more than one 
hundred and fifty years ago, would seem to belong to the former rather than 
to the present division, in which Dr. Anderson has placed it. 

Under the third head are included the remarkable bone-caves which have 
been found, often at a considerable elevation above the sea, in various parts 
of the British islands, in the neighborhood of Palermo, and in other places, 
in which human bones, together with flint implements of human manufac- 
ture, have been found in company with the remains of carnivorous animals 
of great size, some belonging to genera which have been long extinct. The 
argument which has been grounded on these discoveries depends upon the 
conclusion that these human and animal remains must necessarily be of 
contemporary origin. According to Dr. Anderson, this conclusion is not 
only no necessary sequence from, but is actually inconsistent with, the 
observed facts. Ifthe human beings and carnivorous animals whose bones 
are now found mingled in one common tomb had ever been alive together, 
we should have expected to find the remains of the former gnawed and 
broken; a condition in which, apparently, they do not occur. Dr. Anderson 
concludes that these caverns, already containing the fossil remains of ani- 
mals, were from time to time used as habitations by men, Their elevation 
above the sea he accounts for by the upward movement which, as is now 
well known, the eoast-lines of many countries are even at this moment 
undergoing; and he further suggests that such upheaval, if sudden and 
rapid, as in the neighborhood of volcanic centres at least it might weil be 
supposed to be, would cause fissures in the rocks, into which a mixture of 

29 


338 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


fossil remains of very different dates, made by some such process as that 
indicated in speaking of the first division, might subsequently have been 
deposited. 

Such are the reasons on which Dr. Anderson bases his conclusion, that 
there is nothing in recent geological discoveries to warrant a departure from 
the usually accepted date of man’s recent introduction upon the earth. 


ARE THE COAL-MEASURES A SINGLE, UNIQUE FORMATION? 


Are the coal-measures a single, unique formation? Do they belong to a 
single epoch, or are they composed of a succession of formations, separated 
by immense spaces of time, and of which the different stages might be com- 
pared to those of the recent formations: the Eocene, the Miocene, and the 
Piiocene, for example? In the last case, can we admit the vegetation of 
which the remains have been preserved in the shales of the coal, or the vege- 
tation of the coal-marshes, as a true representative of the flora of the various 
epochs where the coal was formed? Or was it then, as the bog-vezetation is 
in our time, composed of a peculiar group of plants, adapted to the forma- 
tion of the coal, pertaining to the marshes only, while another flora, of a 
different character, was covering the dry land, if there was any dry land, at 
the carboniferous epoch ? 

From the thickness of some beds of coal, representing a mass of combus- 
tible matter as great at least as that which is contained in our oldest and 
deepest peat-bogs, from the thickness and various composition of the strata 
which separate the beds of coal, and from the successive changes in the 
vegetation of the coal, it appears that the last alternative is admissible. 
Different hypotheses have been put forward to explain the so-called huge or 
gigantic vegetation of the coal formations. But there is nothing in the car- 
boniferous epoch authorizing the suppostion that the power of vegetable life 
was greater than it is at our time. The combustible matter heaped in some 
of our peat bogs is sometimes sufficiently thick to be equivalent to the coal 
of a bed of four to five feet. The trees growing in our marshes or on the 
peat bogs are generally larger than those which have been preserved in the 
strata of the carboniferous measures. The Dismal Swamp is impenetrable 
on account of the great compactness of its vegetation. It is not an easy 
matter either to get across the heaped, half prostrated, or erect and closely 
pressed trees of our cedar-swamps of the North. If such marshes were 
extended over the greatest part of the United States, they would present a 
fair representation of those of the carbonifecrous period. 

The occasional appearance of the petrified trees, standing imbedded in 
sandstone, does not give evidence of a rapid formation either of the coal or 
of the other strata. Local disturbances may throw a few feet of sand upon 
a marsh, covered with active vegetation, and thus preserve the stumps from 
decomposition, and by-and-by these may be converted to stone. The bald 
cypress and other species of trees grow sometimes in the marshes near the 
sea-shore under ten feet of water. Whole forests of those trees have been 
imbedded in a standing position in the marshes around New Orleans. Thus 
I do not find in the geological records of the carboniferous period any indi- 
cation of a rapid process of formation, either cataclysmic or abnormal, and 
IT readily admit that each bed of coal, with its accompanying strata of fire- 
clay and shales, has required for its formation a period of time as long as 
any of our recent geological divisions. 


GEOLOGY. 339 


The question concerning the existence or non-existence of dry land covered 
with a peculiar vegetation at the epoch of the coal formation, cannot be 
answered positively or negatively by sufficient evidence. The only fact that 
would indicate that the marshes of the carboniferous epoch were surrounded 
by land-bearing plants of different kinds than those living on the bogs is the 
presence in coal and in sandstone underlying it of a great number of fruits 
of different species which by their nature have no relation to any of the 
other remains preserved in the coal. They have been generally referred to 
species of Cordaites. But the two only species of our coal measures are 
found in abundance at geological horizons where the fruits are entirely 
absent. And even coal shales appearing entirely composed of heaped 
remains of leaves of Cordaites borassifolia do not contain any fruit. The 
species of fruit, Carpolithes Cordai Gein., referred by M. Geinitz to Cordaites 
borassifolia, our most common and omnipresent species, has not been found 
in the coal measures of America. Therefore, either the fruits of unknown 
relation belong to vegetable species which have grown on the marshes, and 
of which the remains, leaves and stems, have been entirely obliterated, or 
those fruits belong to species growing out of the marshes, around them, 
and have been floated, and thus disseminated in the shales and in the sand- 
stones. This last opinion appears at first confirmed by a similar process of 
distribution of species in our deep swamps; as the hollow trunks of the bald 
cypress which grows in Drummond lake (Dismal Swamp of Virginia) are 
filled by fruits, acorns, nuts, etc., of trees which grow on the dry land near 
its borders. But it is not presumable that species of fruits only could have 
been floated and disseminated by the agency of water, without any of the 
branches and of the leaves of the plants to which they belong. And 
nowhere have the shales, covering what is called the tail of a coal bank, 
viz. the part abutting against a hill of sand or losing itself in sandstone, 
exposed any remains of plants of another type than those belonging to the 
true coal formation. Even where the shales of the coal are covered with 
remains of shells and of fishes, and consequently formed when the marshes 
were immersed, all the floated remains of plants which are found with those 
of animals belong to the common species of the coal. I believe, then, that 
the plants preserved in the shales of the coal give us a fair representation of 
the general flora of the carboniferous epoch, as true and as general at least 
as the fossil plants of the Miocene represent the general flora of the tertiary 
period. And I suppose that if there was any dry land around the marshes, 
the vegetation contained only a few species different from those living on 
the marshes. But this last opinion is merely hypothetical. — Leo Lesquereuz, 
Silliman’s Journal, Nov. 1860. 


CORRESPONDENCES OF THE AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN COAL- 
FLORA. 


Considering its generic distribution, the American coal-flora is nearly 
related to the European. We have only two or three peculiar genera, repre- 
senting distinct types, which have not been seen in Europe. On the con- 
trary, Europe has no true and generic types of coal-plants which are not 
represented in the coal-fields of the United States. 

Considering its species, a more marked difference in the coal-flora of both 
continents becomes evident. Some of our species represent marked and 
peculiar forms or types, which are not seen in Europe, though a much 


540 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


greater number of species has been found in its coal measures. Thus the 
predominance of typical or distinctly characterized forms belongs to our 
country. By comparison of the flora of our epoch on both continents, we 
find now the same proportional relation and difference as at the time of the 
coal formation, that is, on this side of the Atlantic a predominance of well- 
marked types; a predominance of species of trees;} a number of species 
perfectly identical on both continents, and many American species so nearly 
related to European congeners that their specific characters can hardly be 
established. 

Though further researches ought necessarily to increase the number of 
species of fossil plants belonging to our coal measures, the proportional 
difference is likely to remain as it is established above. 

The fossil flora appears identical at the same geological horizon over the 
whole extent of our coal-fields. This proves uniformity of stratification 
and geological unity of the different coal basins of America. 

The first trace of vegetable terrestrial life appears in the middle of the 
Devonian in a species of Lepidodendron, represented by its bark, its leaves, 
its cones, and large trunks of silicified wood. No remains of any other~ 
form of terrestrial vegetation have been seen in strata either inferior or con- 
temporaneous to this. All the vegetable remains known in the Silurian and 
lower Devonian belong to species of fucoides or marine plants, mostly of 
small size, resembling some species of Fucus of our time. The first leafy 
terrestrial plants appear in the Old Red sandstone. A!l the representatives 
of this new vegetation belong to a peculiar genus, Noggerathia Gopp., more 
related to Conifers or even to Palms than to Ferns. They are found in the 
same geological horizon, both in Europe and in America, and entirely dis- 
appear at or before the beginning of the coal epoch. — Leo Lesquereux, Silli- 
man’s Journal, Nov. 1860. 


INTERESTING GEOLOGICAL SPECULATION. 


The late Professor Edward Forbes, in his work on the Natural History of 
the European Seas (which was left uncompleted at his death five years ago, 
and which has been completed, and published during the past year, by Rob- 
ert Godwin Austen, F. R.S.), gives a curious and interesting instance of 
the method by which zoological studies may be brought to bear upon the 
facts of geology. The fauna of Vigo Bay, an arm of the sea which extends 
inland some sixteen or eighteen miles on the northwestern coast of Spain, is 
found by Mr. M’Andrew to be far more nearly related to that of the British 
seas than to that of the region in which it is situated. Now, it had already 
been noticed by Professor Forbes, some years ago, that the flora of the west- 
ern coast of Ireland was in many instances identical with that of the Astu- 
rias on the northwestern coast of the Spanish Peninsula. Wecannot suppose 
that the seeds of these Spanish plants were conveyed to Ireland by Rennel’s 
current, for in that case traces of them would also be found in the south- 
western counties of England, which is not the case; nor that they were con- 
veyed by the winds, for the plants which are common to the two countries 
are precisely those whose seeds are not well adapted for such diffusion. In 
order, therefore, to account for this singular identity between the floras of 


1 The distribution of the genus Lepidodendron, at the time of the formation of 
the coal, has some analogy with that of the oak in our time. 


EOLOGY. g4t 


two countrieS now separated from each other by so wide an expanse of 
ocean, Professor Forbes suggested that, at a distant period, the Spanish 
peninsula extended far into the Atlantic, past the Azores, and that its north- 
ern boundary was contiguous to, if not continuous with, the coast of 
Ireland; in which case the migration of the Spanish flora would be a 
very simple matter. The alteration in climate, caused by the geological 
changes which were contemporary with or subsequent to the destruction of 
this land, destroyed the mass of this southern flora remaining in Ireland, 
leaving only a comparatively small number of the hardiest plants. An 
important confirmation of the truth of this theory is afforded by the dis- 
covery of a northern fauna in Vigo Bay; since the species of which this 
fauna is composed are such as belong to the littoral and laminarian zones, 
and therefore could only have been transmitted along coasts presenting a 
line of rock or hard ground. As to the period at which this upheaval of 
land between Spain and Ireland occurred, Professor Forbes fixes it as imme- 
diately after the close of the Miocene epoch, a period which we know from 
independent evidence to have been marked by very considerable geological 
changes. 

Nor is this the only instance in which the investigation of the existing 
fauna of the European seas has led to important conclusions respecting the 
distribution of land and water in remote geological ages. From the specific 
identity of the littoral molluscs, which are now found both upon the Euro- 
pean and American coasts of the northern Atlantic, Professor Forbes con- 
cludes that there must anciently have been a continuous coast-line, along 
which these species migrated, probably from west to east; in other words, 
that, at some former period, the north of Greenland was connected with the 
north of Lapland by a belt of land, which cut off the communication 
between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. This supposition is, later in the 
volume, confirmed by Mr. Godwin Austen on paleontological grounds. 
The existing fauna of the European seas dates back to the times which 
immediately followed the Eocene or Nummulitic period; not a single Eocene 
form occurring among the species at present in existence. The oldest 
records of the occupation of the Atlantic by any existing forms are found 
in certain beds scattered over the west of France, known as the Faluns of 
-Touraine. A considerable proportion of the fossils of these deposits belong 
to existing Atlantic species; but they are now found, not on the French 
coast, but in localities several hundred miles further south. A precisely 
similar phenomenon is presented by some old sea-beds near Selsey, on the 
Sussex coast. Existing northern forms are not found among the fossils of 
these old deposits. These facts tend to prove that, in former times, the 
climate of the whole Atlantic region was much warmer than it is now, and 
that the same forms which are now confined to the southern regions then 
extended to a considerably more northern limit. Now this is precisely the 
effect which would be produced by such a separation between the Arctic and 
Atlantic oceans as that suggested by Professor Forbes, The warm waters 
of the gulf-stream, unchecked by encountering the cold arctic current, 
would in that case swecp up to the northern limit of the Atlantic, and the 
temperature of the whole of that region would be materially raised. When, 
by the agency of the same geological changes which upheaved the sea-beds 
of Touraine and Sussex, the belt of land between Greenland and Lapland 
was removed, and the cold arctic current admitted into the Atlantic Ocean, 
its present character would be committed to the North Atlantic fauna, both 

29% 


343 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


by the destruction of many southern species and the introduction of many 
northern forms, which had hitherto been confined to the Arctic Ocean. 


ON THE FOSSILS OF DURA DEN, SCOTLAND. 


Dura Den is a small valley in the northeastern district of Fifeshire, Scot- 
land, which has long been classic ground with British geologists, both on 
account of the lithological character of the Devonian sandstones there 
developed, and the number of fossil remains found in them. These last 
belong almost exclusively to that class of ganoid heterocercal fishes, the 
presence of which is so distinguishing a characteristic of the Devonian 
epoch. 

The following extract from a monograph of the fossils of Dura Den, by 
the Rev. John Anderson of Scotland, published during the past year, will 
convey some idea both of the number and of the extraordinary state of _ 
preservation in which the fossils of this deposit are not unfrequently 
found : — 

‘‘The remains of these fishes are so very abundant in the yellow sandstone 
deposit of Dura Den, that a space of little more than three square yards, 
when the writer was present, yielded about a thousand fishes, most of them 
perfect in their outline, the scales and fins quite entire, and the forms of the 
creatures often starting freely out of their hard stony matrix, in their com- 
plete armature of scale, fin, and bone. This peculiarity of entireness, and 
even of freshness, in these olden denizens of the waters, is so remarkable, 
that, when first exposed to view in the newly split-up rock, there is a life- 
like glistering over the clear, shining, scaly forms, so that one can scarcely 
divest himself of the idea that, instead of the innumerable series of geologic 
terms to be counted, he is looking actually upon the creations of yesterday, 
the relics of things that had just ceased to breathe. ‘ Here is a living one!’ 
exclaimed a workman, as he raised from the bed of a river a large flag- 
stone, in which were counted upwards of fifty fishes, one preéminently full, 
beautiful and rounded in its form. Indeed, the most splendid representa- 
tions of an Audubon, a Gould, or a Landseer, on their glossy canvas, will 
shrink in comparison beside these pictures of nature-painting, brighter than 
the dyes of the artist, as set in their stony tablets, and contrasting finely 
with the rich saffron-colored rock, in which, uninjured and unstained, they 
have hung for ages.” 


EARTHQUAKE IN NEW ENGLAND AND CANADA. 


One of the most severe shocks of an earthquake experienced for many 
years in the northern portions of the United States, and in Canada, occurred 
on the morning of October 17, 1860. In the northern part of Vermont the 
motion was sufficient to jar open fastened doors, ring the church bells, and 
in one case, at Northfield, Vt., a church spire was thrown out of position by 
the force of the shock, and in another, at Brattleboro’, a house was cracked 
in two. In the vicinity of Quebec, the shock was also sufficiently powerful 
to occasion much alarm and produce some injury. 


ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE “TACONIC SYSTEM.” 


Prof. E. Emmons, in his geological survey of Lake Champlain, as far back 
as 1838, recognized below the Potsdam sandstone a series of strata, which he 


GEOLOGY. 343 


described at length in 1844, and named the Tacenic Systen. The arguments 
of Prof. Emmons for the existence of this system were based on certain 
fossils, and on stratigraphical and lithological grounds, which to him appear 
good and sufficient reasons. His views, however, have been almost univer- 
sally rejected by American geologists, and of late but little has been said on 
the subject. Recently, however, the matter has been brought up in the 
Boston Society of Natural History by M. Marcou, who supports the views 
of Dr. Emmons, and adduces the testimony of M. Barrande, the well-known 
European palzontologist, also in confirmation of them. M. Marcou says 
the discovery of Paradoxides Harlani at Braintree, Mass., and that of Para- 
doxides Bennetti and Conocephalites at St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland, in 
slates until then regarded as Azoic and placed among the crystalline and 
primary rocks, show plainly that the Primordial fauna (recognized in 
Evrope as existing before the Silurian epoch) is represented also on the 
Atlantic coast of North America. These are not isolated facts, but rather 
two landmarks showing the existence of strata occupying an important 
place in the system of stratified rocks. ; 
M. Barrande, in a letter to M. Bronn of Heidelberg, also takes the posi- 
tion that the remains of certain species of trilobites, found in that part of 
the Taconic system of Emmons which is referred by other geologists to the 
Hudson River shales, are so unmistakably decisive in their character, that 
any European paleontologist familiar with these fossils would, without 
doubt, refer them to the formations which are recognized as being older and 
inferior to the Silurian System. ‘‘Suchis my profound conviction,” says 
M. Barrande, in his letter to M. Bronn, “and I think any one who has 
made a serious study of the trilobitic forms and of their vertical distribu- 
tion in the oldest formations will be of the same opinion. Besides, all who 
have seriously studied paleontology know well that each geological epoch, 
or each. fauna, has its proper and characteristic forms, which, once extinct, 
reappear no more. This is one of the great and beautiful results of your 
immense researches, which have generalized this law, recognized by each 
one of us within the limits of the strata he describes. The great American 
palxontologist arrived long since at the same conclusion, for in 1817 he 
wrote the following passage in the zntroduction to the first volume of the 
Monumental Work consecrated to the Paleontology of New York. ‘ Every 
step in this research tends to convince us that the succession of strata, when 
clearly shown, furnishes conclusive proofs of the existence of a regular 
sequence among the earlier organisms. We are more and more able, as we 
advance, to observe that the Author of nature, though always working upon 
the same plan, and producing an infinite variety of forms almost incompre- 
hensible to us, has never repeated the same forms in successive creations. 
The various organisms called into existence have performed their parts in 
the economy of creation, have lived their period, and perished. This we 
find to be as true among the simple and less conspicuous forms of the Paleo- 
zoic series, as in the more remarkable fauna of later periods..— J. Hall, 
Pal. of New York, i. p. xx111. When an eminent man expresses such 
ideas so eloquently, it is because they rise from his deepest convictions. It 
must then be conceived that J. Hall, restrained by the artificial combinations 
of stratigraphy previously.adopted by him, has done violence to his palzon- 
tological doctrines, when, seeing before him the most characteristic forms 
of the Primordial fauna, and giving them names the most significant of 
this first creation, he thinks it his duty to teach us that these three trilobites 


. 


344 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


belong to a horizon superior to that on which the second fanua is extin- 
guished.” 

This is certainly very strong language, and it would be not a little remark- 
abie if, after all the discussions and examinations of this subject, and after 
the all but universal condemnation of Dr. Emmons’s views, geologists should 
finally be compelled to acknowledge that he is entirely in the right. 


-—_.* 


Bh OUrr an 


ON THE GROWTH AND HABITS OF THE FUNGI. 


A VALUABLE contribution to botanical science, published in London 
during the past year, entitled “Outlines of British Fungology; containing 
Characters of above a Thousand Species of Fungi, and a Complete List of 
all that have been described as Natives of the British Isles,” by the Rey. 
M. J. Berkeley, is made by the London Atheneum the basis for the following 
popular and instructive article. 

The fungus is a kindly friend, a fearful foe. Welike him as a mushroom. 
We dread him as the dry-rot. He may be preying on your roses or eating 
through the corks of your claret. He may get into your corn-field. A fun- 
gus has eaten up the vine in Madeira, the potato in Ireland. A fungus may 
creep through your castle, and leave it dust. A fungus may banquet on your 
fleets, and bury the payment of its feast in lime. Fungi are most at home 
upon boles of old trees, logs of wood, naked walls, pestilential wastes, old 
damp carpets, and other such things as men cast out from their own homes, 
They dwell also in damp wine-cellars, much to the satisfaction of the wine- 
merchant when they hang about the walls in black powdery tufts, and much 
to his dissatisfaction when a particular species, whose exact character is 
unknown, first attacks the corks of his wine-bottles, destroying their texture, 
and at length impregnates the wine with such an unpleasant taste and odor 
as to render it unsalable; more still to his dissatisfaction when another 
equally obscure species, after preying upon the corks, sends down branched 
threads into the precious liquid, and at length reduces it to a mere caput 
mortyum. 

In addition to such congenial places as these, we find fungi where no 
one would have expected them; as on our window panes and the lenses of 
microscopes, and even on smooth metallic surfaces. Not many years ago 
it was a decided saying, even amongst men of some pretensions, that fungi 
could not grow upon healthy substances; it is, however, now sufficiently 
established that the most healthy tissues may be affected by them so as 
rapidly, under their influence, to become diseased. They are not uncom- 
mon on the dressings of amputated limbs, and have led to ill-grounded 
charges of chirurgical negligence; and it is singular that they are capable 
of growth in substances which are, in general, destructive of vegetables, 
such as tannin, and many species prefer spent tan to almost any other sub- 
stance. More thun one species of fungus is developed on extracted opium, 


346 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and the factories in India have greatly suffered from their presence. Solu- 
tions of arsenic, sulphate of iron, and sulphate of copper, though highly 
concentrated, do not prevent the growth of some fungi of a low order, 
though they are at once destructive to other species. An obscure kind of 
mould is sometimes developed in Madeira wine, and a few years since a little 
mould was discovered in the solution of copper employed for electrotyping 
in the department of the Coast Survey of Washington, and proved an intol- 
erable plague to the nen of science. Rapidity of growth as well as locality 
is very remarkable in certain species. Fungous mould will sometimes appear 
in the inside of bread a few hours after it has been baked, as was once noto- 
rious with the coarse “ pain de munition” or barrack bread at Paris, in which 
a beautiful red mould appeared in an incredibly short time. It was found 
upon examination that the spores (reproductive cells) of certain fungi 
would endure moist heat equal to that of boiling water without parting with 
their power of germination. Perhaps the most curious habitat of a fungus 
was that discovered in America by Schweinitz, viz. a piece of iron which 
had been red hot only a few hours before. Mr. Berkeley answers for the 
true nature of this product, as he possesses a portion of the original speci- 
men. He has seen specimens of another species growing on a leaden 
cistern at Kew, from which it could derive no nutriment. No depth that 
man can descend to seems too deep for these plants, and we, ourselves, have 
discovered a luxuriant crop of them fifteen hundred feet underground, in 
one of the deepest coal-mines. No height that man can ascend to seems too 
high for them, and they appear in due and different orders in the hissing hot 
valleys towards the base of the Sikkim Himalayas, while higher up are sub- 
tropical species, and as you ascend, multitudes of species identical with, or 
closely allied to, northern European species; nor do they cease until they 
reach an altitude of eighteen thousand feet. Of cockney heights it may be 
mentioned that a particular species has been found on cinders, in about the 
last habitat we should expect, — on the outside of the dome of St. Paul’s. 
It is very difficult to say where fungi may not be found, since they are 
sometimes developed in situations apparently excluded completely from the 
external air, as in the potato mould, in cavities of the fruit of the tomato, in 
bazel-nuts, and even in an egg. How they have gained entrance to such 
habitats it is impossible to say, though it is known that the spawn of fungi 
has found a hidden pathway through the closest structures. The depth to 
which fungous spawn penetrates, and the speed with which it spreads, are 
often astonishing. Ina few months, and in a damp situation favorable to 
the development of fungi, the most solid timber will sometimes show une- 
quivocal traces of spawn. Elm trunks, which were perfectly sound when 
felled, have been penetrated by the end of the second year with spawn to 
within a few inches of the centre; and, in this instance, vegetation must have 
proceeded in the trunk for nearly twelve months before any fungi could 
establish themselves. The growth and extension of the too famous dry-rot 
are known to everybody. In fir-built ships it is the species of fungus named 
Merulius lacrymans, while in oak-built ships it is the Polyporus hybridus. 
Instances have occurred in which dry-rot has penetrated solid structures of 
brick. It is curious that the spawn of this fungus can often elude and defy 
the artifices and skill of the most sagacious human being. It can eat out 
the heart of his ships and the foundation of his houses. This almost intan- 
gible product of one of the lower orders of vegetation can silently render 
most fragile what was once most solid, can sap the very floor on which man 


BOTANY. 347 


stands, the very table round which he gathers his family and friends, and 
the very couch on which he reposes. While he sleeps, it grows; while he 
rests, it advances; while he is at peace with all the world, it may be at 
war with him; and while his ‘“ wooden-walls”’ are calmly riding at anchor, 
unless he has taken all due precautions, and employed approved preventives, 
this despicable fungus will prove itself a secret foe, more formidable, perhaps, 
than the open, hostile array of a mighty nation. Wonderful are the powers 
of man to subdue nature to his service; wonderful is the mechanical genius 
of this great nation; wonderful is the penetrating power of conical bullets 
and modern shells, — but it may not be extravagant to affirm that the littie 
dry-rot fungus, in its silent ravages, is more wonderful still, more penetrating, 
and, when once firmly established, more dificult to repel and dislodge. 
England may smile at an invasion of Frenchmen, but she might well 
tremble at an invasion of funguses! " 

Ireland, indeed, has already trembled at such an invasion, if it be correct 
to attribute the Potato Murrain to fungous growth. At all events, Mr. 
Berkeley remarks, — ‘“‘In potatoes affected with the mould which bears so 
great a part in the production of the Potato Murrain, I have seen instances 
in which the tissues were almost entirely replaced by the spawn of the 
fungus. In fact, this spawn attacks the tissues of the plant in almost every 
direction, being present in the tubers and stems as well as in the leaves. It 
has a peculiar property of causing speedy decomposition of the tissues with 
which it comes in contact, and hence induces rapid —sometimes inconceiy- 
ably rapid—decay.”’. Nor are the remedies otherwise successful applicable 
in this ease, and, at present, we cannot be said to know anything which 
effectually checks its progress, although almost numberless plans have been 
suggested. A formidable host of fungous foes is known under the general 
names of Smut, Bunt, Mildew, Rust, and Ergot, and the more particular 
designations of the Hop Mould, the Rose Mildew, and the Vine Mildew. 
The cultivation of the vine has almost entirely ceased in Madeira from this 
cause, and it is everywhere precarious. Hundreds of similar foes attack 
hundreds of other plants, and not only plants but animals, so that a large 
treatise has been written by Robin illustrative of their effects upon the 
latter. Certain species of fungi are promoters of diseases, and although it 
is not probable that they actually originate disease, it is pretty certain that 
they frequently aggravate it. The influence of others in the promotion of 
certain cutaneous disorders is now placed beyond all doubt. Insects are 
probably more injured by particular fungi than other members of the ani- 
mal kingdom. Some of them attack insects in the pupa or larva state, and, 
as it is thought, while they are still living. One West Indian species is de- 
veloped on a perfect wasp, which flies about with its vegetating burden 
until the latter grows too heavy for it, and weighs it down to death like 
an overburdened Sinbad. Our author believes this to be fact, upon the 
authority of one who has had an opportunity of ascertaining the real state 
of the case. While this species has sucha remarkable power of weighing 
down, others, as the common mushroom, have an equally remarkable power 
of lifting up, so that it is asserted that large flagstones have been raised by 
their irresistible increase. 

We have certainly some compensation for this destructive efficacy of the 
fungi in the circumstance that several of them are edible. If they frequently 
destroy our food, they might also frequently contribute to it, if wisely se- 
ected and pleasantly served. Being highly nitrogenous, we should expect 


a: 


43 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


them to be highly nutritive. Not only do savage tribes, like the Fuegians, 
adopt particular species as their staple food during many months, but 
civilized Europeans consume them largely when fresh, and preserve them 
in casks for winter solace. Yet, even respecting these trifles and truffies, 
there are singular national prejudices; and we, who never scruple to eat the 
true mushroom, may be surprised to learn that the Italians carefully exclude 
this species from their markets; while, on the contrary, with the exception 
of the truffle and the morel, it is said to be almost the only one which is 
allowed to be exposed for sale in Paris. Both there and at home these three 
kinds of fungi are important articles of commerce. The extent to which 
mushrooms are employed in the form of ketchup will be quite surprising to 
those who have never given a thought to the subject. A single ketchup 
merchant, in consequence of the enormous produce of mushrooms duriiz 
the present season, had no less than eight hundred gallons of this savory 
sauce in stock; and the whole has been prepared from mushrooms collected 
within a radius of some three or four miles. 

It would seem odd enough that any one should become enthusiastic about 
funguses in relation to food; but they who wish to recreate themselves with 
such enthusiasm should consult Dr. Badham on the “‘ Esculent Funguses of 
England” and his twenty plates of those which may be safely eaten. A 
lady also displays a like furor for funguses; and there are no less than one 
hundred and forty colored plates in Mrs. Hussey’s “‘ Illustrations of British 
Mycology,” besides some excellent receipts and a great variety of informa- 
tion, the result of actual experiment. 

A curious origin is attributed to a species of agaric eaten at Naples (Aga- 
ricus Neapolitanus). A few years ago the nuns of a certain convent in 
Naples were in the habit of throwing their coffee-grounds into the shady 
corner of their garden after each day’s meal. A new species of mushroom 
was observed to shoot up from this substance while in a state of fermenta- 
tion. Having been found excellent food, its cultivation has spread rapidly 
over different parts of Italy, according to Quatrefages, who is our authority, 
and it has since become customary to raise this esculent fungus in many 
parts of Naples in an unvarnished flower-pot, which is constantly kept in 
the shade, and in which coffee-grounds are collected. From this soil mush- 
room-like funguses shoot up in about six months. This may be a mere state 
of some common form of fungus. Another kind (Polyporus) is raised for 
food in Italy from hazel-stumps, by partially cleaving them, and then sup- 
plying them with a proper quantity of water. <A certain species (Polyporus 
tuberaster) springs up in Italy from conglomerated masses of earth and 
spawn, called Fungus-stone (Pietra Fungaja}, when placed in a conservatory. 

There are also economical as well as edible uses for some species of fungi, 
as for snuff, for German tinder, for dyes, for anzsthetic properties like those 
of chloroform. Operations, indeed, have been successfully performed under 
such influence. Some can be employed for intoxication, some to destroy 
flies, and others make excellent razor-strops— probably from containing 
minute crystals hard enough to act upon the steel. The turners at Tunbridge | 
Wells can get a beautiful green tint from the spawn of one species. Medical 
science likewise can find something in this order of plants. Ergoted grain, 
which owes its origin to a fungus, is a most valuable medicine in the hands 
of the regular practitioner, and most dangerous when abused. Domestic 
affairs are indebted to fungi to some extent, since an important use is made 
of a particular condition of certain species of mould in the preparation of 


BOTANY. 349 


fermented liquors under the form of yeast. This consists of more or less 
oval bodies, which continually give off joints so as to produce short, 
branched, necklace-like threads. These joints fall off, and rapidly give 
rise to a new generation, which is successively propagated till the substance 
is produced which is known under the name of yeast. Placed under proper 
conditions, the joints undergo a further change, and give rise to two or 
three species of mould. 

We have put together these curious facts, believing that they will be novel 
and interesting to many who have little suspected how much of destructive- 
ness, of use, of ornament, and of nutriment lie hidden in this humble order 
of plants. But we may properly ask, What is their office and service in 
the grand economy of creation? Such office they have, and such service 
they perform, though cast out and trodden under foot of men. “If the tree 
fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, 
there it shall be.” So saith the Preacher; and the fungologist adds to his 
discourse what he has observed by studying the fallen tree. Of itself, it 
would long cumber the ground, and lie all its length a useless log. But the 
invisible spawn of the fungus draws nutriment out of its dead mass, and 
begins to grow upon this ligneous tomb, and to thrive upon the decay which 
it hastens and aggravates. It is life, even though of the lowest order, spring- 
ing out of death. It is birth and increase coming up from the very mass of 
decay and diminution. The tree rots into powder, the fungus flourishes and 
spreads out until it forms a new soil. Floating and flying seeds drop down 
from the wings of the wind and find a lodgment here, and begin to sprout 
and bring forth leaves. Companions are added to them from every passing 
breeze; and, finally, where once the dead tree lay prostrate, a vegetable 
blank in the midst of green life all around it, up come herbs and plants, and 
the kindly earth is rid of one great, useless burden, and ready to bear again 
the leaf and stem, and perhaps the flower and fruit. 


AMERICAN FOSSIL FLORAS. 


At the meeting of the American Association, 1850, Dr. Newberry gave a 
sketch of the succession of different floras on the North American continenf, 
remarking that the Devonian and Carboniferous floras had been carefully 
studied and characterized by the prevalence of cryptozgamous planis, as ferns, 
ete., and that the floras of America during these ages were strikingly like 
those of Europe of the same epoch. The Permian flora was scarcely known 
in this country; it was but a continuation of the Carboniferous. He observed 
that the Triassic and Jurassic floras were characterized by the prevalence of 
numerous and beautiful Cycadaceous plants which had been studied and 
beautifully illustrated by European fossil botanists, but had hitherto been 
very little known in this country. Recently he had procured a larze number 
of fossil plants of this age from New Mexico and elsewhere, which had 
shown that, as in Europe, the flora of America, during the period of deposi- 
tion of the New Red Sandstone, was cycadaceous in character and similar to 
that of Europe. At the commencement of the cretaceous era, however, the 
flora of the continent was revolutionized, and apparently suddenly, though 
doubtless gradually. The broad-leaved dicotyledonous plants were intro- 
duced, and the vegetation of the continent assumed the general aspect which 
it has at the present day. Among the cretaceous plants are found species of 
Liriodendron (tulip-‘ree), Liquid-amber (swee*-gum), Sassi ‘ras, etc., ete.,— gen- 

39 


300 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


era now living in our forests, of which the first two existed on the continent 
of Europe during the teriiary ages, but are not now known there. Dr. 
Newberry concluded by saying that the aspects of nature, as far as vegeta- 
tion is concerned, on our continent, are of an antique type, and that the 
plants, as was the case with many of the fishes, were old-fashioned forms. 
The climate of the United States, as indicated by these plants, had been, 
through the cretaceous epoch, temperate, and much as now; but during the 
tertiary it had been slightly warmer than at present, but still temperate, and 
cooler than the climate of Europe at the same epoch. 


NOTES ON THE ARCTIC FLORA. 


The following notes on the “ Arctic Flora,” founded on two voyages to 
the shores of Davis’ Straits, have been presented to the British Association 
by Mr. Taylor: — 

From seventy-two to seventy-four degrees north, on the east or Green- 
land side, the coast is rocky and precipitous. Along this coast also there are 
numerous islands, more or Jess conical in form, which also present precipitous 
cliffs. The land in the interior consists of a complicated system of ravines 
and mountain ranges, the former usually occupied by glaciers; between sey- 
enty-four degrees and Cape York the surface seems to present an extensive 
mer de glace. The original soil varies in its nature, having often more or less 
peat on the surface. 

The land on the west or American side of the strait presents an extensive 
plain along the sea border, the mountains in the interior being fewer than on 
the east side, but apparently higher. This land is also destitute of glaciers, and 
its sea free from icebergs; any which occur have been drifted from another 
quarter. In the interior there are mountains, plains, and numerous lakes. 

The east side is sooner clear of snow than the west side, just as that border 
of the strait is soonest clear of ice. On the land the snow first disappears in 
a zone fifty to one hundred feet above the sea, extending thence upward and 
downward. 

The flora is on the whole rich and varied; about one hundred and fourteen 
species of plants were collected (a list was given), belonging to twenty-four 
natural orders, in the proportion of seventy Dicotyledons to thirty-eight Mo- 
nocotyledons, and in addition three Ferns, two Lycopodiums, and one Equi- 
setum, besides numerous Mosses and Lichens. Sasxifraga oppositifolia and 
Salix herbacea were the first seen in flower, the formerin March, the latter about 
the endof May; the species of Ranunculus and Papaver nudicaule are among 
the latest; Sazifraga Hirculus is also late, flowering in the middle of August. 
Ranunculus sulphureus and Papaver nudicaule burst through a covering of 
snow at the time of flowering. On many species the mature fruit is perfectly 
preserved under the snow during the long winter, and thus different birds 
find abundance of food in spring; the natives also avail themselves of the 
same supply. The buds on the peduncle of Polygonitum viviparum are 
greedily devoured by the Ptarmigan and Snowflake. 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLANTS WHICH, BY THEIR GROWTH AND 
DECOMPOSITION, FORM THE PRINCIPAL PART OF THE IRISH 
TURF-BOGS. 


In a paper on the above subject, read before the British Association by 
Mr. D. Moore, the author observed that, although much has been written on 


BOTANY. 30L 


the subject, and many able reports made on it, strange to say, no one has 
yet given any intelligible account of the species of plants which enter princi- 
pally into the formation of the turf-bogs of Ireland, although so large a 
portion of the surface of the country is covered with them, and bog-labor 
constitutes no inconsiderable item, of productive economy in Ireland. By 
far the greatest portion of the bogs in Ireland consists of the kind called red 
bog, which varies in depth from ten to forty feet, or even more. This variety 
is the least valuable for fuel, owing to its soft fibrous consistency. It is sup- 
posed to have been formed on the sites of extensive ancient lakes, or very 
wet morasses, Which may be inferred from the small quantity of wood found 
mixed up with it; besides the roots and trunks of trees being mostly found 
near the edges of the bog, the portions towards the centre being composed 
of nearly a uniform mass of the débris of the list of plants mentioned. It 
was further stated, that although Sphagnums constitute a large portion of 
this substance, without the aid of the roots and branches of phanerogamic 
plants to form a kind of framework to bear up the cryptogamic species, the 
formation of bog could not go on at nearly so quick a ratio as it does. In 
the absence of all trustworthy experiments on the growth of bog, the rate 
of increase could not be well ascertained, but holes out of which turf had 
been cut had been observed filled up with soft vegetable matter, to the depth 
of one foot in five years, which if supposed to be ultimately compressed 
into one-fourth part that bulk, after being solidified, as near an approach 
as can be made to the rate of increase of bog at the present day might prob- 
ably be reckoned on: In limestone districts, where the larger species of 
Chara abound, whose stems and branches are always thickly incrusted with 
ealcareous substances, the deposition of matter takes place faster than it 
does where those plants are not so common. The débris resulting from 
Chara hispida alone, where it grows freely, will soon fill up a shallow pool, 
so that plants higher in the scale of vegetation can grow on it. According 
to the report of the commissioners appointed to report on the nature and 
extent of the Irish bogs, upwards of a million of English acres are covered 
with red and brown bog, more than two third parts of which are westward of 
theriver Shannon. The variety called black or turbary bog was next consid- 
ered in detail, which is the most valuable for fuel, owing to the great quan- 
tity of woody matter it contains. This variety is supposed to have been 
formed on the sites of ancient forests, as is evident from the large quantities 
of prostrate trunks of trees and their roots, frequently im situ, which are 
found in it. The kinds consist chiefly of Pinus sylvestris, Quercus robur, 
Betula alba, and Alnus glutinosa, though large quantities of yew, Taxus bac- 
cata, and some mountain ash, are also found in particular districts. The 
roots of the oaks are generally nearest the margins of the bogs, resting on 
the clay or marl bottoms, while the Scotch firs occur further towards the 
centre, and rest on several feet of peat, thus showing that a considerable 
accumulation of that substance must have taken place before they vegetated 
on it. These roots are frequently found one above the other, where they 
have grown, which has led some to suppose there have been several consecu- 
tive and distinct epochs of growth, and that some species of the trees which 
formed them are not now natives of Ireland. This hypothesis was not 
considered correct, but rather, that by the gradual growth of the bog, matter 
accumulated and covered the first tier of roots, and the seeds of contiguous 
trees on falling and vegetating above them grew, and formed in their turn 
another tier, and so on up to the present surface; as a few of the trees of 


S52 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


those ancient forests which once covered so large a portion of Ireland still 
exist on the Earl of Arran’s property at the present time. After the plants 
which form this variety of bog were enumerated, the kind called mountain 
bog was next considered, which sometimes accumulates to a great depth on 
the tops of mountains, at elevations varying from one thousand to two 
thousand feet. The Sphagnums do not enter so largely into the composition 
of this kind, but their place is supplied by the gray moss, Racomitrium 
lanuginosum. The concinsions Mr. Moore has come to on this subject are 
the following, namely, that so far as proofs exist, the same plants which are 
now forming the bogs of Iveland have done so from the bottom upwards, 
though probably at different ratios, as drainage has increased, and that all 
the species are still in existence in Ireland which have ever formed any part 
of them. These formations he considers to be of a more recent date than 
the glacial epochs of geologists, with probably a single exception. 


NEW VEGETABLE GUM. 


A committee of the Society of Arts in London has recently reported on 
the new gum pauchonté, the product of a tree similar to that which produces 
gutta-percha. This gum is hard and friable at ordinary temperatures, but 
by the application of heat it becomes pasty and viscous, and when once it is 
in this state it does not return to its original condition. When boiled in 
water, it assumes a reddish-brown color, and makes the water a little soapy. 
Many reagents act upon it precisely as they do upon gutta-percha. The 
new gum cannot take the place of gutta-percha, but from twenty to thirty 
per cent. of it can be mixed with gutta-percha without sensibly changing its 
properties. 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF EXTREME COLD ON SEEDS. 


Some experiments, more thorough and satisfactory than those of Edwards 
and Colin, have been made during the present year by Prof. Elié Wartmann, 
of Geneva, on the influence of extreme cold upon the seeds of plants. Nine 
varieties of seeds, some of them tropical, were selected. They were placed 
in hermetically sealed tubes, and submitted to a cold as severe as science 
can produce. Some remained fifteen days in a mixture of snow and salt; 
some were plunged into a bath of snow and sulphuric acid. On the fifth 
of April, they were all sown in pots placed in the open air. They all germi- 
nated, and those which had undergone the rigors of frigidity produced 
plants as robust as those which had not been submitted to this test. 


ZOOLOGY. 


ON SERIES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.—BY DAVID F. WEINLAND. 


THE existence of certain Zoological groups, namely, those of Classes, 
Orders, Families, and Genera, was first noticed by the father of Zodlogy, 
Aristotle. Two thousand years afterwards, these groups were again brought 
to light and named by Linnzeus. They have since been improved by Cuvier 
and Baer, and the idea of type has been added. But it was not till lately 
that the signification, at least of three of them, viz. of Classes, Orders, and 
Families, was recognized and circumscribed by Agassiz. These ideas will 
henceforth stand and be acknowledged as founded in nature. 

But the question arises, whether there do not exist still other relations and 
real affinities of animals to each other, which are not included in these 
groupings, but which have an equal right to be introduced into our zoologi- 
cal system. 

We think that this is in fact the case; and we shall endeavor to show 
in the following sketch that there exist throughout the whole animal king- 
dom affinities of the animals to each other, which we can comprehend 
under the name of ‘‘ Series.””, About twenty years since, a German natural- 
ist, Kaup, spoke of series in the animal kingdom, but, his ideas proving 
somewhat arbitrary, the subject received less attention than it deserved. 
Nevertheless, its truth, if rightly understood, has been since recognized by 
some distinguished naturalists. Oken, for instance, spoke of a scale among 
Articulata, in which he placed the worms lowest, next the Crustacea, and 
last the insects; and Agassiz has illustrated this gradation fully in the 
-development of the butterfly, and has added still another among insects 
proper; starting from the principle that the chewing rank below the sucking 
insects. : 

Another order of position has been recognized by Milne Edwards and by 
Dana among Polypi; another by Leopold von Buch among Cephalopods; 
another by Dana for Crustacea. We have tried to trace out these grada- 
tions also among the higher animals, and the success we have met with, 
wherever we have had accurate information, has convinced us that such 
gradations, which might very properly be termed series, really exist through- 
out the animal kingdom. 

Thus, among Mammalia, we have recognized until now two natural series 
running parallel to each other, a carnivorous and a herbivorous series. The 
carnivorous begins with the whales, runs through the dolphin, seal, and 


lutra, to the marten, whence it divides into two branches, one Plantigradous, 
30% 


304 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the other Digitigradous. The latter of these branches runs through the 
cat, leopard, and dog, where it ends; the other, that of the plantigradous, 
runs through Nasua, Procyon (raccoon), bear, to the cynocephalous mon- 
key, and through the higher monkeys to man. In this latter series, we 
would call the attention of naturalists particularly to the bear, as the inter- 
mediate link between carnivorous animals and monkeys. When we con- 
sider the mixed animal and vegetable food of the bear, its manner of life, 
and general habits, its climbing and embracing propensities, — for in the 
bear we find an arm capable of embracing, as in the monkey, — and when 
we observe its manner of standing upright on its plantigradous feet, which 
is evidently connected with the use of the fore legs as arms, there can be 
no doubt that the bear fills out that gap which seems to exist between car- 
nivorous animals and monkeys. Such is the carnivorous series. 

Parallel to this, and analogous to it, runs a herbivorous series; beginning 
with the Zeuglodons, and running through Sirenoids, Morse, Dinotherium 
to Anoplotherium. Here it divides into two, the Pachyderms and Rumi- 
nants, and thus Owen was right when he said that the Anoplotherium 
includes the characters of Ruminants and Pachyderms. From Anoplothe- 
rium starts on one side the Ruminant series, running through camel, cow, 
antelope, deer, and on the other side the Pachyderm series, running from 
Anoplotherium to Paleotherium and Tapir. At this point we have another 
division into the series of horses, which culminates in our domesticated horse, 
and the series of hogs, which embraces rhinoceros, elephants, and hogs. 

Among Birds, there are at least four series; one starting from the ostriches, 
and ending with the Gallinaceze (I would remark, in passing, upon the . 
striking similarity which exists between the ostrich and the young of the 
domestic fowl); a second beginning with the pelican, and ending with the 
Gallinula, a wader; a third beginning with the hawks, and ending with the 
singing-birds; a fourth beginning with Rhamphastos, and ending with the 
parrot; another beginning with the Buceros, and ending with the swallow 
and humming-bird. 

In Reptiles, there appears to be but one series, — snakes, lizards, and tur- 
tles; the snakes, moving by the dorsal column, and having head, neck, 
trunk, and tail united in one continuous body, are analogous to the whales 
and the Sirenoids. The lizards, provided with a distinct neck, trunk, and 
tail, and with legs, are analogous, the lower ones, the Anguiformes, to the 
seals, the higher to Lutra and Marten. In the turtles, the distinction of 
parts is carried still further; the head and neck are very free, the trunk, 
which in lizards assists in locomotion, is scarcely used for this purpose, 
and the four legs are the locomotory organs. In the class of Batrachia we 
have again the same series. Czecilia is: snake-like, and wholly analogous to 
the snakes and to whales. Icthyoids and Salamanders, provided with small 
or well-developed legs, are wholly analogous to lizards, and the frogs and 
toads to turtles. In frogs and toads, also, the four legs are the only organs 
of locomotion, but the neck and head are not as free as in turtles. This 
goes far to prove that the class of Batrachians ranks lower than that of 
Reptiles. 


ON THE EMBRYOLOGY OF THE SKATE. 


Ata recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, the presi- 
dent, Professor Wyman, gave an account of some observations which he had 
made upon ihe formation of the peculiarly-shaped egg-case of skates. 


' ZOOLOGY. 300 


At a former meeting he had stated that in a single instance he had found 
one of these cases partially formed in the oviduct, and was struck with the 
fact that it contained no yolk. Through the kindness of Mr. Green, the 
Curator of Comparative Anatomy, he had had an opportunity of examining 
the oviduct of a skate in which an incomplete egg-case existed in each 
oviduct; two of the horns, and the bundle of threads at their base, and a 
portion of the body of the case, were already formed, but there were no 
yolks in the oviduct, and only one corpus luteum in the ovary, probably con- 
nected with the previous detachment of an ovum. These observations would 
seem to show that this egg-case is more or less completely formed first, the 
yolk subsequently introduced and closed in, contrary to the order of thines 
with eggs generally. The materials of the egg-case were detected in the 
tubules of the gland of this oviduct, and consisted of granules and long 
slender threads. The case is formed in the central cavity of the gland, and, 
as it is built up, the formed portions gradually extend into the lower part of 
the oviduct. The ovulation of skates resembles that of birds rather than of 
ordinary fishes. In the latter, the eggs are all formed simultaneously, and 
discharged at once, or nearly so, while in the former, as in birds, one yolk 
descends in the oviduct at a time, is encased in the covering, and lost before 
another can go through the same process. 

Professor Agassiz said that the communication of the president was of 
importance, as it bore upon several physiological points now under discus- 
sion. He had been shown by the president the egg still in the ovary (where 
it must have been fecundated), and the shell below prepared to receive it. In 
this connection, he was reminded of a fact noticed by himself some time 
since, with reference to those organs upon the side of the skate called clasp- 
ers, and which are supposed to be used for prehensile purposes. It occurred 
to him that they might be organs of copulation; and he found that when 
they were rotated forwards and upwards, an opening in them was brought 
opposite to the spermatic duct, and he imagined that they could be intro- 
duced readily into the female organs, into the oviducts, and reach the glands 
described, whence the spermatic fluid would pass up. The president’s obser- 
vations rendered this view of the functions of the clasper still more probable. 
Piagiostomes have a very different method of reproduction from other fishes. 
Like birds, they produce few but large eggs, and these are found to be of 
various sizes and different degrees of development in the ovary, indicating 
that several years are required for their maturity, as is the case in turtles. 
These facts and others serve to confirm the affinities of the sharks and skates, 
and to separate them from fishes proper. Aristotle does not speak of Pla- 
giostomes with fishes, but calls them Selachians, and Professor Agassiz fol- 
lows the ancient naturalist, giving them the same name. If the Selachians 
constitute a natural class, then some of the data of paleontology may be 
better understood than they now are. Fishes are generally considered to 
have been the earliest vertebrate animals created; but, in fact, they were not. 
The earliest were Ganoids and Selachians. 


EMBRYOLOGY OF FISHES. 


The development of Fishes is distinguished from that of the scaly Rep- 
tiles, the Birds, and Mammals, in that neither amnion nor allantois is formed. 
In the beginning, that dividing or cleaving of the yolk is perceptible, which 
we have already spoken of in different classes of invertebrate animals. 


896 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


When the yolk has again become smooth, the germinal disc appears, and, 
as it grows, spreads itself over the yolk until it quite surrounds it. After it 
has thus become a vesicle, or in some fishes even before this period, there 
arises, in that part of the germ-disc which is first formed, a longitudi- 
nal groove as the first commencement of the embryo. Two projecting 
edges surround this groove and approach each other, whilst at the bottom 
of the groove the dorsal cord, as the first commencement of the skeleton, is 
formed. The innermost layer of the germ-membrane (the mucous layer) 
presents a constriction, and is thus divided into a canal, situated beneath the 
dorsal cord, and then into a vitelline sac. In some fishes this vitelline sac is 
included in the ventral cavity with the intestinal canal by the wails of the 
abdomen, formed from the serous layer; there is thus an internal vitelline 
sac present in these, and the abdomen of the embryo presents an unusual 
projection (Cyprinus, Perca, Salmo); in others the abdominal covering is 
drawn together by constriction like the mucous layer, and the vitelline sac 
hangs on the outside of the ventral cavity, being attached to it by a short 
pedicle (Blennius viviparus, Cottus gobio, Syngnathus). In the Playiostomes 
(sharks and rays), an external vitelline sac is similarly observed, whict 
here, however, has a long pedicle, which in some sharks is beset externally 
with villi. In most of these fishes the umbilico-intestinal duct is continued 
within the abdomen into a second internal vitelline sac: a blind sac, which 
occupies a large part of the ventral cavity, and is inserted into the anterior 
bladder-like portion of the intestinal canal above the commencement of the 
spiral valve. The lateral walls of the body of the embryo, which are at 
first smooth, suddenly present on each side five (or six) fissures of equal 
width. Between these fissures four small streaks are formed as the com- 
mencement of the branchial arches. In front of the first fissure, and behind 
the mouth, arises a wider arch, divided by a groove into two parts. The 
anterior half of this is changed into the under jaw, and the various bony 
pieces which unite it with the cranium. From the posterior half arise the 
horns of the tongue-bone; at the posterior margin of these parts, in bony 
fishes, the gill-covers and the branchial rays are developed at a later period 
only, the branchial arches being at first unprotected. The unpaired fins 
arise at first as a long fold of skin, which surrounds the body, and is much 
more extensive than the future pinna dorsalis and anelis. All the bony fishes, 
whose development has been hitherto observed, quit their egg-covers at a 
very early period, and whilst still imperfectly formed. In the embryos of 
sharks and rays, the filaments which hang freely from the branchial fissures 
— productions of the internal leaflets of the gills, reminding us of the exter- 
nal gills of larve of Salamanders — are especially deserving of regard. — 
Van der Hoeven’s Zoélogy. 


NEW FACTS IN EMBRYOLOGY. 


At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. Agassiz 
stated that Dr. Augustus Miller had recently published a paper on the 
Embryology of Petromyzon (the Lamprey), presenting facts hardly to be 
credited if they had not emanated from such authority. In the family of 
Cyclostome Fishes there have been placed two characteristic genera, viz. 
Petromyzon and Ammocetes. From the egg of Petromyzon Miiller says he has 
raised Ammocetes, and he has likewise seen the latter become a Petromyzon. 
It is now well established that fishes undergo a form of metamorphosis, as 


ZOOLOGY. our 


well as insects. Prof. Agassiz had himself, within a few weeks, had an oppor- 
tunity of studying the embryology of a species of shark (Acantheus Ameri- 
canus). He had found the yolk, not surrounded by an amnios, but resting in 
the centre of an area vasculosa, and presenting, in its early development, 
other peculiarities only known to exist in the egg-laying vertebraia. He 
considered Plagiostomes a distinct class of animals from fishes, and he 
thought it probable that Cyclostomes shouid also be separated as a class. He 
could not refer to one class animals developed in such different modes. 
The number of classes into which the animal kingdom is divided — into six 
by Linneus, into sixteen by Cuvier, and into twenty-nine by Ehrenberg — 
shows that anatomical differences are insutficient for a proper determination 
of classes. He proposed that the general plan of structure be a test for 
types, and the manner in which this plan is developed the test for classes. 

Prof. Agassiz, in alluding to the probability of a fecundation of the ege 
whilst in the ovary, stated that Dr. Weinland had found, in the viviparous 
Zoarces anguillaris, that the ovarian bag (Graafian vesicle) of the mature 
eggs was not a simple sac, but a double one; and, further, that this double 
sac was not continuous over the complete circumference of the egg, but 
that a disc of considerable size remained uncovered at the upper part, 
where the spermatozoa might come in contact with the yolk membrane. 
Dr. Weinland had also found the same condition in the skates and turtles. 
Prof. Agassiz thought that the same organization would be found in all 
vertebrata. 


FECUNDITY OF CERTAIN FRESH-WATER MOLLUSCS. 


At a meeting of the American Academy, May, 1859, Mr. Isaac Lea exhib- 
ited some remarkable specimens of Unionidz, six to eight inches wide. 
Some of these had the soft parts, and he called attention to two fine spe- 
cimens of Margaritana complanata and Unio multiplicatus, both females, 
with the oviducts fully charged with embryonic shells, ready to be dis- 
charged by the parents. There were two important points he wished to be 
noticed. ist. The enormous quantity of young in the mass of the outer 
branchiz of the Margaritana (the branchix were 3 X 17 X 4 inches), each 
specimen containing probably several millions of individuals. 2d. That the 
Unio multiplicatus was peculiar in having both lobes on both sides charged with 
embryonic shells, containing no doubt several millions of individuals. This 
‘species of the. Unio is the only one Mr. Lea had ever observed furnished with 
oviducts in all the four lobes of the branchiz. It is very probable that half 
a dozen of these Mollusca would produce individuals equal in number to the 
population of the whole United States. 


ON THE REPRODUCTION OF PARASITIC ANIMALS. 


At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. D. F. Weinland 
gave an account of the Reproduction of Parasitic Animals, and explained 
the phenomena of alternation of generation in the parasitic Trematoda of 
the freshwater snails. The first generation of this animal exists, in the 
form of “‘Distoma,” in the intestines or lungs of vertebrata, as a perfect 
animal with genital organs producing eggs; the next generation exists as a 
yellow worm in the liver of the snails mentioned above, with or without an 
intestine, their bodies being filled with the third generation of the animal, 


* ~ 
358 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


viz. little worms with long tails, — the so-called Cercarians, — which originate 
in the body of the yellow worm by a kind of budding. In the third genera- 
tion, these Cerearians are brought forth by the mother, swim for a while 
free in the water, and then become a kind of pupa, forming a cyst around 
themselves, and in this state seeming to wait till, by chance, they are swal- 
lowed by a vertebrated animal, in which they become in a few days, as is 
shown by experiment, a perfect Distoma. 

Dr. Weinland has found a new species of Cercaria, the first known in this 
country, in the liver of the Physa heterostropha, and he concludes, from fur- 
ther investigations, that this Cercaria belongs as a larva to a blackish-spotted 
Distoma, which he has found frequently in the lungs of frogs and toads, and 
once in the intestine of a turtle, and which he propeses to describe under 
the name of Distoma atriventre. 

He added that a similar alternation of generation takes place in another 
order of Helminthes or parasitic worms, viz. the order of Cestoda. The 
investigations of Kuchenmeister and Siebold have shown that the cysts 
in the flesh of the hog, causing the condition known under the name of 
“‘measly pork,” are pupz of the human tapeworm, and that they develop 
themselves into the latter when taken into the human intestine; and that 
the human tapeworm, when eaten by a hog, produces in this animal these 
cysts. In three instances, in which he had seen tapeworms in Americans, 
these worms were identical with the Tania solium, the tapeworm of the 
English and Germans, the same species upon which the experiments of 
Kuchenmeister were made,—not the Botriocephalus latus, the tapeworm of 
the French and Swiss, which seems to have a different kind of development. 
He had found a larva of a tapeworm, a so-called Scolen, with two large red 
spots behind the head, in the intestine of the common alewife (Alosa Ameri- 
cana), provided with four large suckers (acetabula), but not having an articu- 
lated body, nor genital organs. This larva was destined, as he supposed, to 
become a perfect tapeworm only in the body of another vertebrated animal 
by which the alewife might be swallowed, — perhaps ina shark. He had 
found another larva of a tapeworm, the Tetrarhynchus Morrhue, Rud. (T. 
corollatus, Siebold), in a cyst near the heart of the common codfish. He 
had found the larva of tapeworms, known under the name of Cysticercus, 
in the pelvic region of the American hare (Lepus Americanus), and in the 
liver of the rat (Mus decumanus). After a careful comparison he found 
them identical, one with the Cysticercus of the European hare, and the other 
with that of the European rat; which become, according to the experiments 
of the same helminthologist, Kuchenmeister, the first, the tapeworm of the 
dog, and the second that of the cat; a fact likewise noticed by the American 
hunters. 

Dr. Weinland supposed that this Cysticercus of the American hare came 
from the European dog; the eggs of the tapeworm having been swallowed 
by the hare, perhaps with vegetable food. In another and new species of 
tapeworm, the Tenia punctata, Wein|., found in the gold-winged woodpecker, 
he had observed the embryo just hatching. The shell of the egg of this 
worm has two processes, each terminating in a large ball; the embryo is 
provided with six spines. Some years ago, Dr. Hein and Dr. Meissner found 
pup of tapeworms in cysts in a land-snail (Helix pomatia), and in a beetle 
( Lenebrio molitor), and in the cyst were found six little spines thrown off by 
the embryo. Thus we have reason to believe that that hatching embryo, 
With its six spines, penetrates into an insect or a mollusc, forms there a 


ZOOLOGY. 309 


pupa, loses its spines, and waits in this state till the snail or the insect is 
swallowed by a vertebrate; for in vertebrata oniy we find perfect tape- 
worms. In the case of Tenia punctata, we may suppose that the embryo 
enters an insect, forms there a pupa, which afterwards is eaten with the 
insect by the woodpecker, and then is developed into a tapeworm. Thus, 
the intimate relations existing between the woodpecker, its tapeworm, and 
the insects in which the latter lives as a pupa, and upon which the wood- 
pecker feeds, must be intimately concerned in the preservation of the species 
of this worm; and if we consider how infinitely small is the chance of a 
single ege’s perfecting its development in that bird, we see why one tape- 
worm should furnish millions of eggs in a year. 

The Psorospermia, discovered first by Johannes Miller, which may be 
another larval state of a worm, Dr. Weinland has found by thousands 
attached to the hind part of the eye-bulb of the American haddock (Gadus 
aeglefinus). 

To a question proposed by Dr. Gould, “‘ Whence come the parasitic worms 
of the fcetus in utero?” Dr. Weinland answered, that only two or three 
such instances are known; and from the fact that he once witnessed an 
Ascaris penetrating a membrane in such a manner that, after it had traversed 
it, there was not to be seen any perforation in the membrane (the worm 
having separated the fibres of the tissue without tearing it), he thought that 
he could explain the presence of the worms, found in the embryo, by a 
passage from the abdomen of the mother and through the walls of the 
womb, and thence into the body of the embryo; a movement which, ac- 
cording to this observation of Ascaris, could be effected without wounding 
the tissues. 


ON THE TAPEWORM. 


One of the most valuable contributions recently made in pathology and 
zoology is an essay by Dr. D. F. Moreland, of Boston, entitled ‘‘ The Tape- 
worms of Man: their nature, organization, embryonic development, the 
pathological symptoms they produce, and the remedies which have proved 
successful in modern practice.”’ 

The following extracts from its pages, made by the editors of Silliman’s 
Journal, will be found to contain facts of a most curious and interesting 
character : — 

Every butcher is acquainted with the disease in the muscles of the 
domesticated hog, denominated “ measles,” and calls the flesh of such a hog 
“measly pork.”’ It has long been known that those pea-like whitish globules 
(measles) contain a curious animal, namely, the perfect head and neck of a 
tapeworm, ending, however, not in the long jointed body of the regular 
tapeworm, but in a water-bladder. No traces of reproductive organs are to 
be seen. Such measles are found not only in the hog, but also in other ani- 
mals, where they are better known under the name of Hydatids. For exam- 
ple, they are very often met with in the liver of rats and mice; in the me- 
sentery of the hare; and even, though more rarely, in the muscles of man; 
and those of the latter have turned out to be of the same species ( Cysticercus 
Cellulose, Rudolphi) as those found in the hog. All the different species of 
this sort of hydatids are known in science under the generic name of 
Cysticercus. 

Again, other hydatids, varying from the size of a pea to a diameter of 
several inches, are occasionally found in the lungs, the liver, and other 


369 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


organs of man, but more frequently in the liver and lungs of our domesti- 
cated Ruminants, such as oxen, sheep, and goats. These hydatids are round- 
ish bladders of milky-white color, containing a watery fluid, in which swim 
many whitish granules; each of these granules is, as a good lens will show, 
a well-developed head and neck of a Tenia, inverted into a little bag. This 
kind of hydatid, also, has been considered as a distinct genus of intestinal 
worms, and called chinococcus. 

Again, a disease frequently occurs in the brain of sheep, producing vertigo 
(German, Dreher, French, tournis). This was ascertained, years ago, to be 
caused by another sort of hydatid, appearing as a bladder, often of several 
inches in diameter; and, as in Cysticercus and Echinococcus, filled with a 
watery fluid. On the outside of these bladders are attached a number (often 
hundreds) of tapeworm heads, all retractile into the inside of the bladder by 
inversion like the finger of a glove. This hydatid was considered by zoolo- 
gists as a third genus, called Cenurus. 

These three genera, Cysticercus, Echinococcus, and Caenurus, formed until 
recently an order in the class of intestinal worms, called Cystica (bladder 
worms, or vesicular worms). But we now know that all of this group are 
merely larvz of tapeworms, and that the whole order of Cystica, being com- 
posed of larvze of Cestoidea, must therefore be dropped from our zoological 
system. 

This important discovery was made as follows: Ephraim Gotze, a German 
clergyman and naturalist of the last century, had noticed a singular similar- 
ity between the heads of some Cysticerci and those of some tapeworms. He 
had particularly noticed this similarity between the tapeworm of the cat 
( Tenia crassicollis) and the Cysticercus which is found in the liver of the rat 
and mouse ( Cysticercus fasciolaris). C.T. von Siebold, the most noted hel- 
minthologist now living, had observed the same thing, and in 1848 had 
already alluded to the possibility that all these Cystica might be nothing but 
undeveloped or larval tapeworms. In his system, however, he still recog- 
nized the Cystica as a distinct order of Helminths. 

In the year 1851, F. Kiichenmeister first proved by experiment that a cer- 
tain hydatid, when brought into a suitable place, is developed into a tapc- 
worm. He fed a dog with the hydatids ( Cysticercus pisiformis) found in the 
mesentery of the hare, and on dissecting the dog, after a number of weeks, 
found these Cysticerci alive in the small intestine. They had, however, lost 
their tail-bladder, and the neck had begun to form the joints of a true tape- 
worm, which worm had been long well-known as Tenia serrata, and as 
common in the dog. Now, one discovery followed another. Governments, 
scientific institutions, and wealthy farmers furnished the money and animals 
to carry on the experiments on a large scale. Siebold fed a dog with the 
Echinococcus of the ox, and thus raised the Tenia Echinococcus, Siebold. It 
was also found in the same way that the Cenurus from the brain of shecp 
is the larve of another Tenia of the dog, Tenia Cenurus, Siebold. 

Now the question, whence does man get his tapeworm? was ready to be 
answered. It had been observed that the hydatids of the hog, commonly 
called ‘‘ measles ”’ (in the zoological system, Cysticercus Cellulosa), have exactly 
the same head as the common tapeworm of man ( Tenia Solium, L.); and after 
the experiments mentioned above, in relation to the different tapeworms cf 
dogs, a doubt could hardly exist that Cysticercus Cellulose of the hog was the 
Jarvz of the common human tapeworm (Tenia Solium). Kiichenmeister, who 
wished to make sure of the fact, made the experiment upon acriminal who was 


ZOOLOGY. 361 


soon to be executed, and, as was to be expected, with perfect success. Measles 
taken from fresh pork, and put into sausages which the criminal ate raw, at 
certain intervals before his death, were found again, in the post-mortem 
examination, as tapeworms in his intestine, and in different stages of devel- 
opment, according to the intervals in which the measles had been taken. 

Thus it became clear that all hydatids are tapeworm larvx, which, when 
swallowed with the animal, or a portion of it, in which they live, by another 
animal, develop in the intestine of the latter. 

Now the opportunity for experiments was again open in another direction. 
If the tapeworm embryo developed its scolex or head by interior budding, it 
was likely that those animals having hydatids got them by eating the eggs 
of the species of tapeworm to which those hydatids belonged. And this has 
been proved by experiment. Goats fed with eggs of the Tania Echinococcus 
got the Echinococcus; sheep fed with the eggs of Tenia Cenurus got the 
Ceenurus in their brain; healthy young hogs fed with the eggs of the human 
tapeworm got the measles. Kiichenmeister, Siebold Van Beneden, Gurit, 
Luschka, Wagener, Leuckart, Eschricht, and others, have the merit of trac- 
ing this interesting development. From their further investigation, it became 
moreover evident that the Ccenurus also, with its many heads, originated 
from one embryo, which, enlarging greatly, throws out as buds from its inte- 
rior, not one, but many scolices; moreover, that the process is also exactly 
the same in Echinococcus, except that in this hydatid the scolices free them- 
selves after a while from the internal walls of the bladder, and thus swim in 
the fluid contained in the bladder, the latter itself being simply the enlarged 
embryo. 

But the zeal of these investigators did not rest here. If the sheep gets by 
chance the eggs of the Tenia Canurus of the dog into its stomach, how do 
the embryos hatching from those eggs reach a suitable place for their devel- 
opment into hydatids, which place is, in the sheep, the brain? It had been 
erroneously assumed that they bored with their spines recta via from the 
stomach through all the tissues and organs until they reached the brain. 
Accordingly, in the hog, the embryos of the Tznia would have to go from 
the stomach into the muscles; in the rat, into the liver; and in the ox, into the 
lungs; for it is only in these particular organs that these hydatids are found. 

R. Leuckart, however, discovered the way in which the embryos actually 
reach their destined resting places. On feeding rabbits with the eggs of 
Tenia serrata, he found that, some hours after the feeding, the egy-sheils 
were already dissolved into prismatic granules by the juices of the stomach, 
and the embryos set free. But on putting the eggs immediately in the 
intestine (through an artificial opening) they were not hatched. It was clear, 
therefore, that only the gastric juice could hatch the embryos; and this 
accounts at once for the strange fact, that the embryo never hatches in the 
intestine of the animal where the tapeworm itself lives. Moreover, he found 
that they do not pass from the stomach into the intestine, and hence, as had 
been supposed, through the bile-ducts into the liver, but that they pierce the 
blood-vessels, and thus come into the circulation. He even, after along search, 
found four perfect embryos in the blood taken from the vena porte. It ts by 
the blood that the embryos of tapeworms are carried to the organs in which 
they develop into hydatids. It now at once became obvious how easily they 
reach the muscles, the brain, the lungs, etc. But it is to be supposed that 
only those which reach the destined organ will develop themselves, while the 
rest, Which are carried to other organs, must perish. 


ol 


3862 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


THE COMPOSITION OF ATMOSPHERIC DUST. 


The composition of atmospheric dust will always be of two kinds, inor- 
ganic and organic, that is to say, mineral particles, and the skeletons of 
animalcules, or the skeletons and seeds of plants. The mineral particles will 
of course depend on the nature of the soil and position of the spot whence 
the dust was derived. It may be swept in from the gravel walks of a gar- 
den, from the highroad, or from the busy street. The grinding of vehicles, 
the wear of busy feet, the disintegration everywhere going on, keep up a 
constant supply of dust. The smoke of chimney and factory, steamship 
and railway, blackens the air with coal-dust. If silicious rocks are not a 
great way off, we shall find abundance of particles of silica, with sharp 
angles, sometimes transparent, sometimes yellow, and sometimes black. 
And this silica will occasionaily be in so fine a powdered condition, that the 
granules will look like very minute eggs, for which, indeed, many microscop- 
ists have mistaken them. In this doubt we have recourse to chemistry, and 
its tests assure us that we have silica, not eggs, before us. Besides the 
silica, we see chalk in great abundance; and, if near a foundry, we shall 
certainly detect the grains of oxide of iron (rust), and not a little coal-dust. 
Our houses, our public buildings, and our pavements, are silently being 
worn away by the wind and weather, and the particles that are thus torn 
off are carried into the dust-clouds of the air, to settle where the wind list- 
eth and the housemaid neglecteth. 

There is one thing which will perhaps be found in every place, and in 
every pinch of dust, which is not a little surprising. It is starch. No 
object is more familiar to the microscopist than the grain of starch. It is 
sometimes oval, sometimes spherical, and varies in size. The addition of 2 
little iodine gives it a blue color, which disappears under the influence of 
light. There seems to be no difference between the starch grains found in 
the dust of Egyptian tombs and Roman temples, and that found in the 
breakfast-parlor of to-day. They both respond to chemical and physical 
tests in the same way. But there is one curious fact which has been 
observed by M. Pouchct of Rouen, namely, that in examining the dust of 
many centuries he has sometimes found the starch grains of a clear blue 
color; and he asks whether this may not be due to the action of iodine in 
the air, traces of which, M. Chatin says, always exist in the air. The objec- 
tion to this explanation is, that if iodine is always present in sufficient quan- 
tities to color starch, the grains of starch should often be colored, whereas 
no one but M. Pouchet has observed colored grains, and he but rarely. M. 
Pouchet tells us that, amazed at the abundance of starch grains which he 
found in dust, he set about examining the dust of ‘all ages, and all kinds of 
localities, —the monuments and buildings of great cities, the tombs of Egyp- 
tian monarchs, the palaces of the age of Pharaoh; nay, he even examined, 
some dust which had penetrated the scuils of embalmed animals. In all 
these places starch was found. But a moment’s reflection dispels the mar- 
vellousness of this fact. Starch must necessarily abound, because the 
wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, etc., which form everywhere the staple of 
man’s food, are abundant in starch; the grains are rubbed off, and scattered 
by the winds in all directions. 

So widely are these grains distributed, that a careful examination of our 
clothes always detects them. Nay, they are constantly found in our hands, 
though unsuspected until their presence on the glass slide under the micro- 


ZOOLOGY. 363 


scope calls attention to them. It is only necessary to take a clear glass 
slide, and press a moistened finger gently on its surface, to bring several 
starch grains into view. Nay, this will be the case after repeated washing 
of the hands; but if you wash your hands in a concentrated solution of 
potash, no grains will then be found on pressing the moistened finger on 
the glass. This persistent presence of starch on our hands is not astonish- 
ing when we consider the enormous amount of starch which must be rubbed 
from our food and our linen every instant of the day; and when we con- 
sider, on the one hand, the specific lightness of these grains, which enables 
them to be so easily transported by the air, and, on the other hand, the 
powerful resistance they offer to all the ordinary causes of destruction, one 
may safely affirm that in every town or village a cloud of starch is always 
in the air. 

And hereby hangs a tale. Starch is a vegetable substance, and, until a 
very few years ago, it was believed to have no existence in the animal tis- 
sues. But the great pathologist Virchow discovered that in various tissues 
a substance closely resembling starch was formed, which he considered to 
be a morbid product. The discovery made a great sensation, and many were 
the ingenious theories started to account for the fact. At last it came to be 
maintained that starch was a normal constituent of animal tissues; and 
there is no doubt that investigators might easily find starch in every bit of 
tissue they handled, since their fingers, as we have seen, are pientifully cov- 
ered with grains. If, however, proper precautions be taken not to touch the 
tissue with the fingers, nor the glass slide on which it is placed, no starch 
will be found. It is because of the starch-clouds in our atmosphere that 
grains are found on our persons and on almost every microscopical prepa- 
ration. . 

But are the starch-clouds all that the sunbeam reveals? By no means. 
Some animals will be found there; not always, indeed, nor very numerously, 
but enough to create astonishment. And these animals are not insects, dis- 
porting themselves; they are either dead or in a state of suspended anima- 
tion. A few skeictons of the infusoria, scales of the wings of moths and 
butterflies, and fragments of insect-armor, may be reckoned as so much 
dust; but there is also dust that is alive, or capable of living. You want to 
know what that dust is? It is always to be found in dry gutters on the 
house-tops, or in dry moss growing on an old wall; and Spallanzani, the 
admirable naturalist to whom we owe so much, amazed the world with 
announcing what old Leeuwenhoek had before announced, namely, that 
these grains of dust, when moistened, suddenly exhibited themselves as 
highly organized little animals —the Rotifers and Tardigrades. Water is 
necessary to their activity. When the gutter is dried up, they roll them- 
selves into balls, and patiently await the next shower. If, in this dried con- 
dition, the wind sweeps them away with much other dust, they are quite 
contented; let them be blown into a pond, they will suddenly revive to ener- 
getic life; let them be blown into dusty corners, and they will patiently 
await better times. Such are some of the things found in the dust of a 
sunbeam. In addition, a few spears of plants are also frequently found. 
Knowing that many plants are fertilized by the agency of the wind, one 
would naturally expect to find pollen grains abundant. Indeed, when we 
consider how rapidly bread, cheese, jam, ink, and the very walls of the 
room, if damp, are colored with mould, which is a plant; when we consider 
how impossible it is to keep decaying organic substance free from plants 


564 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and animalcules, which start into existence as by magic, and in millions, we 
have no difficulty in accepting the hypothesis of a universal diffusion of 
germs — eggs or seeds — through the atmosphere. No matter where you 
place organic substance in decay, if the air, in never so smail a quantity, 
can get at it, mould and animalcules will be preduced. Close it in a phial, 
seal the cork down, take every precaution against admitting more air than 
is contained between the cork and the surface of the water, and although 
you may have ascertained that no plants or animalcules, no seeds or eggs, 
were present when you corked the bottle, in the course of a little while, say 
three weeks, on opening the bottle, you will find it abundantly peopled. To 
explain this, and numerous other facts, the hypothesis of a universal diffu- 
sion of germs through the air has been adopted; and the known fecundity 
of plants and animalcules suffices to warrant the belief that millions of mil- 
lions of germs may be constantly floating through the air. Ehrenburg 
computes the rate of possible increase of a single infusory, Paramecium, at 
two hundred and sixty-eight millions a month. And it is calculated that 
the plant named Bovista gigantum will produce four thousand millions of 
cells in one hour. As the mould plants are single cells, and as they multiply 
by spontaneous division, the rapidity with which they multiply is incal- 
cuiable. 

From all this, you see how naturally the idea of universal diffusion of 
germs has become an accepted fact. If it is a fact, we must feel not a little 
astonished at finding the dust we examine so very abundant in starch, coal, 
silica, chalk, rust, hair, scales, and even live animals, and so strangely defi- 
cient in this germ-dust. The germs are said to be everywhere; millions upon 
millions must be diffused through the air; every inch of surface must be 
crowded with them. Do we find them? We find occasional pollen grains 
and seeds. But we find no animalcule eggs, and no animals, except the 
Rotifers and Tardigrades. We find almost everything but eggs. ‘“O,” 
you will perhaps remark, ‘‘that is by no means surprising; if they are dif 
fused in such enormous quantities through the air, it stands to reason that 
they must be excessively minute, otherwise they would darken the air; and, 
if they are excessively minute, they escape your detective microscope, that’s 
all.’ Your remark has great plausibility; indeed, it would have overwhelm- 
ing force, were there not one fatal objection to the assumption on which it 
proceeds. If the eggs of animalcules were so excessively minute as you 
imagine them to be, there would be no chance of our detecting them. But 
it happens that the size of the eggs of those animalcules which are known 
(and of many we are utterly ignorant) is, comparatively speaking, consider- 
able; at any rate, the eggs, both from size and aspect, are perfectly recog- 
nizable inside the animalcule; and, if we can distinguish these eggs when the 
parent is before us, or when we have crushed them out of her body, it will 
be difficult to suppose that we could not distinguish them among the other 
objects in a pinch of dust, when a drop of water has been added. 


ZOOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 


Domestication of the Canna in England. —The Canna (Oreas Canna), a South 
African ruminant, and largest of the antelope species, approaches the ox in 
form and weight, multiplies its kind in captivity, grows rapidly, fattens 
easily, has a fine-grained and juicy flesh, and there is reason to believe that 
it may be extensively raised for the market. The present stock in England 


~~ + eee 


a ae a) 


‘ 


ZOOLOGY. 3865 


was imported by Lord Derby, from the Cape, in 1851, since which time the 
five—three females and two males — have increased, within eight years, to 
twenty-seven head; of which fifteen belong to the Zodlogical Society of Lon- 
don. With the exception of one female that has sickened, these animals are 
all perfectly healthy, and the progeny in England is larger and stronger than 
the parents. They range with other cattle, and receive no extra food or 
care. The canna, although petulant and active, is familiar and docile in its 
behavior. It does not breed with the bovine species. One which was killed 
for the table in 1858, without having been especially fattened, weighed eleven 
hundred and seventy-five pounds. Its meat was of delicate flavor, and very 
fine, close texture. 

Angora Goat in France.— The acclimation of the Angora goat has now 
been completely accomplished in France. The goat is now living and at 
large in the Vosges, Jura, Cevennes, Alps, mountains of Auvergne and Avey- 
non, and the Black Forest. It also prospers marvellously in Algeria. The 
Angora goat was introduced there in 1856; the flock consisted of ten individ- 
uals, four males and six females; it has so prospered as to consist now of 
forty-six individuals, eighteen males and twenty-cight females, and none are 
at all degenerated from the original stock; the silky hair has lost nothing of 
its lustre, and affords fine velvets, every way comparable with the silk velvets, 
and even superior to them, as it does not mat with pressure or friction. M. 
Bernis, veterinary of the army in Africa, to whom this flock has been intrusted, 
proposes to produce a mixed breed between the goat of the country and 
some of the females of the Angora (which are in excess in the flock), and so 
establish a new variety. The trial has already been made in France, anda 
mixed breed obtained of very rustic appearance, with hair inferior in quality 
to that of the pure Angora. | 

Acclimation of the Lama in France.—The Acclimation Society of the zone 
of the northeast of France reports a very interesting experiment in the do- 
mestication of the lama in the mountains of the Vosges. The lama has been 
used on a farm, where he has been in the habit of carrying loads of sixty to 
seventy pounds. He can do the work of a small donkey. He feeds on green 
or dried grass. He needs no shoeing, which is a great advantage in the Vos- 
ges, where the roads are often covered with ice and snow, on which he is as 
sure-footed as a dog. The expense of keeping him is about equal to that of 
keeping three sheep. When the ground is covered with snow he eats about 
ten pounds of hay per day. He seems to endure the cold of winter as well 
as the heat of summer, and in the mountainous regions of France promises 
to be of much value. 

Birds forming Guano. — M. Raymonde, who was recently sent to the Chin- 
cha Islands by the Peruvian Government to report on the existing quantity 
of guano, makes the following statements: The deposit evidently belongs to 
the present epoch of the earth’s history, and ten species of birds are enu- 
merated as the originators of the guano. These species do not all live con- 
stantly on the islands, but some appear only at the breeding season. The 
pelicans do not appear to produce much guano, as they almost exclusively 
inhabit the cliffs, and their excrement falls into the ocean. Some of the birds 
hollow out nests in the guano, and are unable to fly. The birds which pro- 
duce the largest quantity of guano are the Puffinarias, their number being 
almost incredible. 

Parasites upon Flies. — At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural 
History, Professor Wyman remarked that it had probably ve frequently 

3l* 


366 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


noticed by members of the Society, that the common housefly may be fre- 
quently seen hanging dead from the ceiling, or attached to any surface on 
which it may be lying, by a filamentous white substance; and that a whiie 
powder, in greater or less quantity, is frequently seen dotted over the neigh- 
boring surface. On examining this substance, he had found the insect to 
have fallen avictim to a parasitic plant growing upon its surface. The white 
powder proved io be the spores of the parasite. The whole interior of the fly 
was found to be filled with a similar plant, and probably, from the different 
way in which it develops itself, of a different species from that on the surface. 
The internal parasite starts from a spore, and grows by elongation from one 
or both sides of a sphere, this latter remaining in the middle or at one end. 
Prof. Wyman exhibited magnified drawings of these parasites, as they ap- 
pear under the microscope, in their various stages of development. 

On a Cause of Death in Elephants. — At a recent meeting of the Boston 
Society of Natural History, Prof. Wyman stated that he had been informed 
by the Rev. Mr. Walker, of the Gaboon (West Africa) Mission, that elephants 
in that vicinity were frequently swamped and smothered in mud-holes. He 
regarded the fact as interesting, as showing at the present epoch causes of 
death similar to those which probably existed in the time of the mastodon, 
several of which were found together in New Jersey, and were supposed to 
have been mired in the same locality. 

Hen’s teeth have been numbered with the Greek kalends, but M. Geoffroy 
Saint-Hilaire discovered in 1806 that fetal birds have rudiments of teeth, and 
M. Blanchard, an assistant in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, now 
announces that some birds have regular systems of teeth; the number of 
teeth being unequal. 

Peculiarities of the Nervous System.— According to Dr. Pfluger, the effect 
of galvanizing a certain portion of the spinal cord, or the grand sympathetic 
nerves, is to put a stop to the peristaltic movements of the small intestines. 
On galvanizing one end of the grand sympathetic, peristaltic movement is 
arrested throughout the entire length of the small intestines; and thus the 
result is analogous to that stoppage of the action of the heart which takes 
place upon galvanizing the pneumogasiric. As in the case of the heart, also, 
the arrestment of movement is rapidiy brought about, — rapidly, but after a 
perceptible interval, — and the state of the muscle is one of relaxation. As 
in the case of the heart, also, the normal contractions begin again a short 
time after the current has ceased to pass, if this current has not been passed 
for too longatime. Dr. P. has also ascertained that the peristaltic movements 
of the small intestines are not arrested by galvanizing the lesser sympathetic 
nerves, and that the peristaltic movements of the large intestines are not 
affected by galvanizing either the Jarge or small sympathetics. 

Muscle-foryetfulness.— Baron Heurteloup is the author of a new term, 
myolethe, Which may be translated muscle-forgetfulness. The muscular sys- 
tem, being placed under the influence of the cerebro-spinal apparatus, in 
normal conditions is managed by it. But any strong passion may so occupy 
the brain that it forgets to continue its action upon the muscle. He says 
that when we open the mouth, while listening with great attention, it is not, 
as some of the transcendental physiologists have declared, to open the eus- 
tachian tube as a new conduit for the sound, but merely because the under 
jaw falls; and the under jaw falls because the brain is so much preoccupied 
that it forgets to hold it up. In the same way, he explains the powericss- 
ness which seizes upon people at any terror, as on the brink of a precipice, 


ZOOLOGY. 367 


and a great number of similar phenomena. This, too, gives a good explana- 
tion of such phenomena as stuttering, and is the key to many chronic 
diseases. 

Conditions of Insanity. —M. Moreau, physician of the Bicétre, Paris, states 
in a recent work “that the organic conditions most favorable for the devel- 
opment of the faculties are those which give origin to delirium. Transcen- 
dental capacities, or intellectual aptitudes, derive their origin from an extra- 
physiological condition of the organs of thought, and from this point of 
view we may consider genius as a neurosis. The-axiom of ‘asane mind 
in asane body’ is false. The deterioration of the physical man is a con- 
dition of the perfection of the moral man. The human intelligence is 
never nearer to its fall than when it is elevated to its highest grandeur. The 
causes of its fall are also the causes of its grandeur.” Again he asserts: 
‘Most individuals endowed with a superior intellect, or even merely placed 
above the common level of intelligence, reckon among their ancestors and 
members of their family, lunatics,” ete. 

M. Meyer, of the insane hospital of Hamburg, has also recently published 
the results of a long series of observations upon insane patients, in relation 
to the heat of the body, and the theory of insanity which these observations 
go to establish. The leading ideas of M. Meyer are briefly as follows :— 

All mental disease is accompanied by some corresponding abnormal 
physical condition. All mental diseases fall into two great classes. In the 
one the mental action exhibits a state of the intellect below the normal 
intelligence, —there.is evident weakness or confusion of mind. This 
diseased condition is idiopathic, — comes from the brain. If, in case of any 
patient of this class, there appears a state of excitement, this excitement 
indicates at once fever. : 

In patients of the second great class, the mental strength is not below the 
normal standard, but the intellectual activity is wrong in direction. The 
insanity here is ‘‘sympathetic or reflected,” that is, it does not arise from 
a diseased brain, but the cause is to be sought in some other organ or part 
of the body, — the organs of generation, the digestive organs, etc. 

While assistant physician in the Insane Department of the Charité at 
Berlin, Dr. Meyer made the observations above spoken of, in relation to the 
degree of heat of the bodies of several of his patients. For this purpose he 
had delicate thermometers constructed, some to be used in the mouth, others 
7nano. The tables of observation show with remarkable uniformity how a 
change of temperature precedes (or at all events attends) such changes in 
the mental condition of the patients as belong to one or the other of his 
two great classes. 

Effects of Drunkenness on the Offspring.— At a recent meeting of the Acad- 
emy of Sciences, Paris, M. Démeaux read a paper exhibiting, in a very strik- 
ing manner, the very great proclivity to disease incident to children whose 
fathers are intoxicated at the moment of fecundation. Paralysis, epilepsy, 
insanity, hysteria, and a long, sad catalogue of disorders of the nervous 
system, have been classed among the maladies so communicable to children. 
Moral debility and intellectual obliquity are also said to be not seldom com- 
municated in a similar way. 

Antidote for Strychnia. — About a year ago, Dr. Vella, an Italian chemist, 
announced the discovery of a remedy for tetanus and an antidote to strych- 
nine, in the shape of Curarina (curarc), an. alkaloid obtained from the Lasios- 
toma curare, or woorare-tree of South America, and by far the most subtle and 


368 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


powerful of known poisons. This alleged discovery was received with con- 
siderable scepticism, but Vella, who entered immediately upon a series of 
thorough experiments, now demonstrates, in a paper communicated to the 
French Academy of Sciences, the truth of his assertion. A quantity of strych- 
nine and an equal amount of curarina, either of which would suffice to pro- 
duce instantaneous death if administered separately, when given to animals, 
leads to no dangerous results. 

Influence of Cod-Liver Oil and Cocoa-Nut Oil on the Blood. — Dr. T. Thomp- 
son, in a paper read before the Royal Society, states that he found that 
during the administration of cod-liver oil to phthisical patients their blood 
grew richer in red corpuscles. The use of almond oil and of olive oil was 
not followed by any remedial effect; but from cocoa-nut oil results were 
obtained almost as decided as from the oil of the liver of the cod. The 
oil in question was a pure cocoa oleine, obtained by pressure from crude 
cocoa-nut oil, as expressed in Ceylon and the Malabar Coast, from the dried 
cocoa-nut kernel, and refined by treating with an alkali, and then repeatedly 
washed with distilled water. 

Phosphorus in the Animal Economy. — According to the results obtained by 
M. Mege-Mouries, organic phosphorus is, not only in the grain of the serials, 
but also in the egg of animals, the initiative power and the first aliment of 
the forming embryo. According to this chemist, also, the special group of 
fatty substances with which this phosphorus is combined in molecules is 
the special nutriment of the nervous apparatus; hence the acknowledged 
importance of reducing the amount of phosphorus in medicines to be given 
to persons under certain nervous conditions. Again, M. Boutigny has pro- 
posed the employment of phosphate of lime in lymphatic affections, and has 
compounded an anti-limphatic wine, which contains phosphate of lime in 
solution. M. Baud now proposes the employment of fatty phosphates 
extracted from the spinal marrow of the herbivorous mammals for the 
restoration of the nerves in all cases of nervous weakness. 

Ventilation and Health. —In a recent lecture before the Royal Institution, 
on the relations of town architecture to public health, Dr. Drewitt stated 
that close bed-room air was an efficient cause of scrofula and consumption. 
Thirteen contagious diseases producible at will were enumerated; and the 
lecturer stated his belief that in time epidemic diseases will be made subject 
to human control; and that the surest mode of protecting the dwellings of 
the rich was to cleanse and ventilate the dwellings of the poor. 

On the Poison Apparatus of the Rattlesnake.— At a recent meeting of the 
Boston Society of Natural History, Professor Wyman gave an account of 
some dissections which he had recently made of the poison apparatus of the 
rattlesnake. 

He had not found the connection of the duct and the poison gland to 
correspond with the descriptions usually given. The duct proper does not 
reach the opening at the base of the tooth, but ends at a short distance from 
it. The communication beyond this is made by means of the sheath of the 
tooth, which is too loose to prevent the poison from escaping around the 
exterior of the tooth instead of entering this canal, were it not for the cir- 
cumstance that, as the tooth is protruded, the sheath is crowded back, and 
thus made to fit tightly the circumference. 

He had seen a rattlesnake, when held in such a manner as to prevent its 
striking, discharge the poison in a simple jet to the distance of several 
inches. He also mentioned the habit which the rattlesnake is known to 


‘ZOOLOGY. 369 


have of living in company with other animals. While recently in Florida, 
he had found two large rattlesnakes and an opossum living in the same nest 
with the wood rat. 

Life at Great Depths in the Ocean. — Capt. McClintock, in a recent survey 
of a submarine telegraph route between the Faroe Islands and Greenland, 
states, in his report, that during their soundings they bropght up from the 
depth of 1,260 fathoms (7,560 feet) a living star-fish, which had become 
entangled with the lower portions of the line, which had laid upon the 
bottom. This fact is particularly interesting as bearing upon the question of 
the existence of animal life at great depths in the ocean. 

Application of Sugar when Lime has entered the Eye. —The Indicateur de 
Mayence, in relation to cases of workmen becoming blinded by the action of 
lime which has entered the eye, recommends, as a well-approved application 
in the case of such accidents, a strong solution of sugar, which is to be 
inserted drop by drop under the eyelids. This application can usually be 
immediately obtained, and completely prevents the caustic action of the 
lime. — Journal de Chimie Med. 

On the Capacity of the Lungs. — Dr. Hutchinson, of England, in a recently 
published work on the vocal organs, asserts that the capacity of the lungs 
bears a uniform relation to the height of the individual, this conclusion being 
based upon experiments made upon 1920 male subjects. The same authority 
asserts that the capacity of the lungs increases eight cubic inches for every 
inch above five feet. From fifteen to thirty-five the vital capacity increases 
with the bodily development, and diminishes from thirty-five to sixty-five, at 
the rate of about one cubic inch per annum. 


ON THE EFFECTS OF ARSENIC ON LARVZ. 


At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. F. H. 
Storer read the following paper on the power possessed by the larvz of 
various common flies of consuming, without apparent injury to themselves, 
the flesh of animals which have died from the effects of arsenic: — 

Larvz were first observed upon the liver of a subject in whose stomach he 
had previously detected the presence of arsenic; this liver was found on 
analysis to be saturated with arsenic. In order to determine if the larvz 
were actually nourished by such poisonous flesh, the bodies of several rats 
killed by arsenious acid were exposed to the flies; in forty-eight hours they 
were completely fly-blown, and in a week all the flesh had been consumed 
by the larvz; after this they changed into chrysalids. These chrysalids on 
analysis yielded metallic arsenic. It might be supposed that the arsenic 
thus obtained had been attracted mechanically to the external surface of 
the larvae, and had not been swallowed, especially as the denuded bones 
were covered with a white powder resembling arsenic; however this may 
be, the larve must either instinctively reject the poison, or it is excreted by 
them after ingestion. A number of these chrysalids were kept, in order to 
ascertain if they would undergo metamorphosis, and, if so, whether the 
perfect insects would be heaithy and vigorous. Some were kept two months, 
at the end of which time they were accidentally lost, undergoing no change, 
remaining however in a perfect state of preservation and full of pulp; a 
number of small flies, apparently not ichneumons, which gained access to 
them, died almost immediately, as was supposed from having fed upon 
them; the empty shells of other chrysalids found about the room showed 


370 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


that some had been metamorphosed, as none but the arsenically-fed larvae 
had been admitted to the apartment. Experiments made to determine how 
large a quantity of arsenic might be contained in flesh without rendering it 
unfit for the food of these larvz were not very satisfactory, from the harden- 
ing of the tissue by solutions of this substance preventing the deposition of 
the eges; eggs developed in such tissue bring forth living worms, which in 
his experiments died in six or eight hours. The adult flies perished in great 
numbers, while depositing the eggs upon the poisoned flesh. Jaeger (quoted 
by Orfila, Toxicologie, i. 379) alludes to the fact that larve of flies live a 
little longer than the perfect insects when arsenious acid is introduced into 
the digestive organs or applied to their external soft parts. Under favorable 
moist conditions, the larve lived three or four days, and were evidently 
nearly ready to pass into the chrysalid state. Experiments with arsenic acid, 
used however in too concentrated a state, also showed that there is a limit to 
the amount of arsenic which these larvz can support. 

He was inclined to believe that they can eat with impunity any flesh into 
which arsenic has been carried by vital processes, from the fact of their 
being found upon the arsenicated liver, an organ capable of absorbing avery 
large quantity of this poison; anatomical preparations, injected thoroughly 
with arsenic acid, have been found completely riddled and alive with larva. 

This matter is important to chemists occupied in judicial investigations, 
who should not infer that a fly-blown organ can contain no arsenic; though, 
if flies die almost immediately after alighting on a suspected substance, 
arsenic is probably present, and should be specially sought for. These facts 
are also interesting as showing the great differences which exist in animals 
in their several conditions of metamorphosis, and as indicating the caution 
with which the results of experiments on one species should be received as 
applying to other species. The popular belief that a body, dead from the 
effects of arsenic, must of necessity be preserved from decay for an indefinite 
length of time, is unquestionably an error; in many cases of murder or 
suicide, where a great amount of the poison is administered, portions of or 
even the whole body may be preserved for a long time; but the few grains 
which it is admitted are enough to cause death cannot preserve from decay 
so large a mass as a human body. That a small, though fatal, dose will 
not prevent decomposition, is well known to all who have ever had poisoned 
rats die in the walls of their houses. 

Dr. Cabot made a statement respecting the ravages of the larve of Der- 
mestes and Anthrent in specimens of birds supposed to be sufficiently protected ; 
the former, he said, attack the skin, the latter the legs and bill. Specimens 
dipped in a very strong solution of corrosive sublimate, and in a saturated 
solution of arsenious acid in hot water, were attacked by these larvze; but 
specimens dipped into a tincture of strychnine were not touched by them. 
Of the first two poisons, arsenic is the best; in specimens preserved by the 
latter the skin was not touched, the larve boring in through the legs. 

Dr. C.T. Jackson, in relation to the preservation of animal tissues by 
arsenic, mentioned a case in which the stomach, carefully washed, had at 
first assumed a yellowish tint, becoming soft, with an odor of ammonia, but 
none of sulphuretted hydrogen, then changing into a pasty mass of a custard 
yellow, and finally of the magnificent red of the sulphuret of arsenic, the 
sulphur having been obtained from the decomposition of the tissues. In 
another case, where the amount of the poison was greater, the abdominal 
organs were perfecily preserved, and the walls shrivelled. 


ZOOLOGY. ott 


POISONING BY LOOKING-GLASSES. 


Careful observation is beginning to reveal various sources from which 
injury to the health may arise in quarters heretofore unsuspected. The 
remarks upon the injurious effects of arsenical pigments have led to the 
inquiry whether no other injurious matters have been introduced by the 
luxuries of civilization into our atmospheres. 

Mirrors are coated with tinfoil amalgamated with mercury; this mercury 
gradually evaporates into the atmosphere of the room, and must be received 
(in infinitesimal quantities) into the sysiem, and, at least, gives ground to 
inquire what effects may arise from it. This, at least, we know, that the 
workmen who are engaged in the manufacture of mirrors suffer severely 
from the effects of the mercury. 

Fortunately, the day of quicksilver mirrors appears to be passing away. 
The superiority of mirrors coated with pure silver, by Liebig’s process, 
appears to be undoubted. Metallic silver is first precipitated upon them, — 
a coat of 16.000 of a millimeter (z00v00 of an inch) is sufficient. Metal- 
lic copper is precipitated on this to strengthen it, and varnish is applied to 
preserve the copper from oxidation. These mirrors cost no more than those 
made in the ordinary way, and are said to .be far more beautiful. They 
reflect twenty per cent. more light, and give the objects reflected a warm tone, 
very different from the pale and cold tone of quicksilver mirrors. <A preju- 
dice was excited against them in consequence of some made in London and 
Paris which did not stand well; but a manufactory at Doos, under the direc- 
tion of a pupil of Liebig, has produced excellent mirrors, which, after a 
period of three years, did not exhibit the least deterioration. More particular 
information will be found in Dingler’s Polytechnic Journal, Bd. civ1i1. § 205. 
— Communicated by M. Carcy Lea. 


ATTITUDES OF THE DEAD. 


It appears that during the recent battles in Italy, some of the French phy- 
sicians were directed by their superior medical officers, in addition to their 
more immediate duties to the living, to study the physiological mechanism, 
if one may so speak, of death itself, as it occurred in the battle-field; that is 
to say, the physiognomy, positions, and attitudes incidental to death from 
the arms of war, during, or as soon as possible after, the conflict. Thus the 
surgeon passed from his operating ambulance to view the fallen. Is not this 
an intensification of the moral sublime; a unique study, original, French; 
more than tragedians ever conceived ? 

Thus, Dr. Armand, physician-major of the first class, chief of the ambu- 
lance of the head-quarters of the fourth corps of the French army of Italy, 
relates from personal observation some inieresting particulars concerning the 
aspects and attitudes of the slain in the battle-fields of the Crimea and of 
Italy, —a condensed translation or sketch of which (from Gaz. Hebdom. de 
Meéd. Sep. 16, 1859) will be subjoined, as worthy of consideration, psychi- 
cally, physiologically, and traumatically. 

During the day of the battle of Magenta, including the night, eight 
hundred wounded Frenchmen and Austrians underwent capiial or minor 
operations and dressings at the ambulance of Dr. Armand. With his two 
assistants, he had completed his work by the dawn of the following day, 


372 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


when he proceeded to inspect the bloody field of Magenta, and the attitudes 
of the slain; a melancholy but not a useless duty. 

Dr. Armand observed that a great number of the dead preserved, as nearly 
as may be, the same attitudes in which they had been when the messengers 
of death struck them,—a proof that they had passed from life to death 
without-agony, without convulsions. Those struck in the head generally lay 
with the face and abdomen flat upon the ground, a position which the death- 
stiffness had not changed, holding, fcr the most part, their weapons still 
grasped in their hands. 

Dr. Armand mentions a peculiarity often attendant upon wounds of the 
head, in which the patient thinks himself by no means dangerously hurt, 
although sometimes he dies, one might say, spontaneously, or by surprise. 
During the battle of Solferino, a soldier, wounded in the head by a ball, 
entered the ambulance, and was dressed by Dr. Lambert. The ball had per- 
forated the skull and lodged in the cerebral mass; nevertheless, the patient’s 
intelligence was perfect; he made light of his wound; lay down, having his 
lighted pipe in his mouth, with his head raised upon his knapsack against 
the wall, where he was found afterwards, with his pipe still in his mouth. 
He had expired without a movement or noise. Dr. Armand details a simi- 
lar case, that of a sergeant-major, whom Dr. Lambert (Dr. Armand’s assist- 
ant) dressed in the Crimean war. The soldier smoked on for a dozen of 
days after having been wounded; and, having lighted his pipe for the last 
time, died suddenly, keeping it still in his mouth. These cases are, there- 
fore, attested by at least two medical witnesses. 

Dr. Armand says that soldiers who receive their death-wounds in the heart 
fall and rest in the same manner as those do who are killed by injury of the 
brain, though the death is not so instantaneous but that it may allow an atti- 
tude, which, so to speak, is active. We have seen, among others, a Zouave 
struck fairly in the chest, who was brought together, or doubled upon his 
musket, as if taking a position to charge bayonet, his face full of energy, as 
if advancing, with an attitude more menacing than that of a lion. 

On the other hand, an Austrian, who had died by hemorrhage from a ball 
which had divided the crural vessels, whose agony had been of some dura- 
tion, as proven by the blood in which he was bathed, presented the attitude 
of supplication; he lay on his back a little bent to the right, his face and 
eyes turned towards the heavens, both hands joined together, with the 
fingers interlaced and contracted. The man died in the attitude of prayer. 
In fact, religious ideas appeared to have prevailed quite extensively among 
the Austrian soldiers, as well as among the Russians in the campaign in the 
Crimea. 

In wounds of the abdomen, as the agony was more or less prolonged, the 
pains were intolerable, attended with vomiting and hiccough; the face of 
the corpse was generally found contracted, the hands and forearms crossed 
and closed upon the abdomen, the body doubled upon itself, and resting on 
the side. 

At Ponte Vecchio di Magenta, a Hungarian hussar, killed (as was his 
horse), remained nearly in the saddle lying upon the right side, having the 
point of his sabre in advance, in the position of a horseman when charging. 
He had roses still fresh in his tolpak, his forehead pierced with a ball; his 
horse was riddled with shot in the head, and both had died simultaneously. 
This case was witnessed by Dr. A. Renard. Dr. Armand relates a parallel 
case which occurred to an Austrian artilleryman. 


ZOOLOGY. 373 


At Melegano, several French soldiers while charging bayonet fell, mortally 
wounded with grape-shot; their faces rested on the ground and their bayo- 
nets pointed in advance. 

At Magenta, among the slain strewed upon the battle-ground, several 
Austrian officers were recognized of distinguished physiognomy, dressed 
with the utmost care and propriety in glossy gloves; one might say that 
they had affectedly made their toilet in anticipation of death. Their fine 
blond heads of hair and regular features, for the most part different from 
the common soldiers, had the expression of bravery and resignation. 

Next to such a vast panorama of death, the dead-house of the Charity 
Hospital of New Orleans, during a great epidemic of yellow fever, may 
claim a place. The physiognomy of the yellow-fever corpse is usually sad, 
sullen, and perturbed; the countenance dark, mottled, yellow, livid, stained 
with blood and black vomit, and swollen; the eyes prominent and blood- 
shotten and yellow. The veins of the face and of the whole body often 
become distended; the whole expression is less calm and placid than in 
most other corpses, especially such as have died of haemorrhages, — Dr. B. 
Douwler in N. O. Medical and Surgical Journal. 


STATISTICS OF CONSUMPTION. 


At a recent meeting of the American Geographical Society, New York 
City, an elaborate paper was presented by Dr. H. B. Millard, “ On the Facts 
and Statistics of Consumption throughout the World.” Some of the points of 
interest embodied in this communication are as follows : — 

It has been estimated that about one sixth of all the deaths among the 
human race occur from consumption. In New York city it destroys one 
third more lives than all the other diseases of the respiratory organs, such as 
bronchitis, congestion and inflammation of the lungs, catarrh and influenza, 
whooping-couzh, asthma, etc. No climate is exempt from its sway, but it 
exercises its remorseless rule in the frosty climes of the north, in the scorch- 
ing heats of Africa, and in the more genial atmosphere of the temperate 
zones. In using the word “consumption,” the speaker said he referred to 
that variety of phthisis characterized by a deposition of tubercles in the res- 
piratory organs. Dr. Caspar, in 1847, from a table of 60,000 deaths occurring 
from various diseases, within twenty or thirty years, found that the ratio of 
deaths by consumption to deaths from other diseases was as 1 to 5.7. He 
(the speaker) had found, from a table he had laiely constructed, that of 
2,771,728 deaths from all diseases, between 1804 and 1860, 483,583 deaths, or 
1 in 5.7, were caused by consumption. These deaths occurred in almost every 
variety of climate. There are, however, some countries in which consump- 
tion is entirely unknown. There has been no material increase or diminution 
of the disease. Statistics of the city of London, kept for two hundred and 
thirty years, show that from 1629 to 1740 it caused 6.6 part of all the deaths, 
while from 1740 to 1830 it caused 4.6 part, or nearly one third as many more. 
Since 1830, however, the deaths have seldom exceeded one sixth partef the 
whole. In New York, from 1804 to 1820, the deaths by consumption were one 
in 4.2; from 1820 to 1836, 1 in 5.4; from 1835 to 1850, 1 in 6.5; and from 1848 
to 1859, 1 in 8.46. There is no doubt that it has steadily declined since 1805. 
In Boston, from 1810 to 1818, the deaths by consumption were about 1 in 7. 
Since then there has been a gradual decrease till 1845, when it caused about 
1 death in 6.5. While consumption prevails here to such an alarming extent, 

32 


374 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


in England, where a more equable climate exists, the proportion of deaths 
from this disease is much higher than in America. This might, however, be 
owing to the humidity of the atmosphere there. Mere temperature, or the 
difference of a few degrees of latitude, has little to do with its prevalence. 
In New York city, which has a mean annual temperature of 50°, the deaths 
are 1 in 8.46, while in Charleston, which is situated 8° further south, and has 
a mean annual temperature of 64°, they are 1 to 6.7. In Philadelphia, with 
a mean temperature of nearly 54°, the deaths by consumption are 1 in 8.9. 
In Providence, with a temperature the same as New York, the proportion is 
1to6. In Chicago it is 1 to 10. In New Orleans, which has a mean temper- 
ature of 67°, the proportion in 1850 was 1 to 11.7. In Memphis, in 1859, it 
was 1to 11.3. And in Brooklyn, from 1848 to 1859, it was 1 to 8.11. In the 
United States army there are about thirteen cases of consumption to every 
thousand men. The greatest number of cases occur on those posts located 
between 26° and 35° of longitude, in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, 
including the cities of Charleston and New Orleans, which are characterized 
by high temperature and excessive moisture. The stations in Texas and 
California show the smallest proportion of deaths from consumption. Prob- 
ably the smallest proportion of cases anywhere in the United States is in New 
Mexico, where the deaths are only about 1.5 in every thousand men. Hizh 
elevation, cold, equable climate, are not calculated to the larze development 
of consumption. The regions of the high latitudes enjoy almost entire im- 
munity from the disease, and in Iceland and among the Esquimaux it is rarely 
if ever known to occur. It is also a rare disease in Upper Russia and West- 
ern Siberia. In Alexandria, situated in the thirty-first degree of latitude, 
with an atmosphere saturated with saline vapor, consumption is almost 
wholly unknown; and in Teheran, Persia, situated in latitude 35°, with an 
elevated position and rarefied air, it is very rare. The medical statistics of 
the British army afford much valuable information in regard to the prevalence 
of the disease in different parts of the world, and give a correct impression 
in relation to the influence of certain varieties of climate. From these we 
find that in the United Kingdom 5.5 men in a thousand were attacked by con- 
sumption. In the West Indies, between the tenth and nineteenth degrees 
north latitude, there were twelve in a thousand. These returns show how 
erroneous are the views generally entertained in regard to the influence of 
the climate of the West Indies, or of a warm climate, per se, in arresting the 
development of consumption. In two of the stations of the Mediterranean, 
namely, Gibraltar and Malta, long noted as salutary retreats for consumptive 
patients, it is actually more prevalent and fatal than in Canada and New- 
foundland, with their long, cold winters and vicissitudes of climate. In Can- 
ada 6.5 per 1000 men are attacked, and 3.8 die of the disease. In Gibraltar 
7 are attacked, and in Malta 6.7. In Bermuda, with a great uniformity of 
climate, 8 per 1000 men are attacked, and 5.1 die, while in Newfoundland the 
deaths are only 4 per 1000. While on the one hand, therefore, consumption 
is rare or unknown in those countries situated in high latitudes, we find that 
it frequently exists in its minimum among those living in tropical countries. 
In all India, out of ten regiments, the aggregate strength of which was 
nearly 15,000 men, during a period of fourteen years, only forty-three were 
attacked. 

Madeira, between the thirty-second and thirty-third degrees of north lati- 
tude, with its balmy atmosphere, perpetually summer temperature, the ther- 
mometcr showing a variation only of 10°, and the mean annual tempera‘ure 


ee 


—- = -«.. oe 


ZOOLOGY. 375 


being 65°, seems, of all the countries in the world, best fitted for the mitiga- 
tion and arrest of consumptive conditions. Patients who come here live 
_ three or four years longer than the ordinary duration of the disease in Eng- 
land, and Jarge numbers have resided in the island in perfect health, while 
their brothers and sisters have fallen victims to the disease at home. Havre, 
situated near the sea, with a free circulation of air, is nearly exempt from 
the disease. At Rome about one twentieth, and at Naples one eighth of the 
deaths occur from consumption. 

The theory that the sea sometimes acts as a ffreventive or palliative of con- 
sumption is confirmed by statistics. Out of an aggregate English naval 
force of 12,942, in the Bay of Bengal, in 1842, 39 were attacked and 16 died 
of consumption. In an aggregate military force of 14,590, on the island of 
Ceylon, in the same latitude, 78 — just double the number — were attacked, 
and 51 died. From 1830 to 1836, of an effective total of 159,770 British sail- 
ors, stationed in every part of the British dominions, from the Cape of Good 
Hope to North America, the deaths by consumption were 1.7 per thousand 
men. In the British army the number of deaths per thousand by consump- 
tion is 4.09. 

Dr. Caspar, from tables kept at Berlin, shows that the difference in morital- 
ity from consumption in various winters has no connection with the differ- 
ence in temperature, in the coldest and warmest weather the mortality being 
the same. In a table of 212,407 deaths from consumption in the principal 
cities of the world, the deaths were, in the spring, 61,945; winter, 55,309; 
autumn, 45,956. 

Consumption is not necessarily more prevalent in large than in small cities, 
though the rural] districts are less liable to its development. 

Consumption is a rare disease among African negroes, but the predispo- 
sition is increased when they leave home. 

The proportion of deaths among gentry and professional men is 16, among 
tradesmen 28, and among laboring men 30 per cent. Among pressmen in 
printing offices 31 per cent. die of consumption, and of those confined in an 
unvarying position 71 per cent. 

From the various facts presented, the speaker deduced the following con- 
clusions : — 

1. That climate is the most powerful agent in modifying and controlling 
its prevalence. 

2. That there are certain varieties of climate inimical to the development 
of consumption, and of these the most unfavorable are, first, those character- 
ized by extreme and varying cold; second, climates characterized by a cool, 
dry atmosphere; third, those which have a very high temperature with but 
a moderate amount of moisture. 

3. That those climates most favorable to consumption are those which have 
a high temperature and moist atmosphere, and those which are characterized 
by great variations in the daily temperature. Humidity seems most favor- 
able and dryness most unfavorable to consumption. 

4. That the liability is increased by insufficient exercise and confined air. 

5. That it is more prevalent among females than males; on land than on 
the sea; and that the period of its greatest mortality is between the ages cf 
twenty and thirty, 


376 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


VITAL STATISTICS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 


According to the report of the British Register General for 1859, it is esti- 
mated that the population of great Britain, — England, Ireland, Scotland, 
and Wales,—in the middle of 1858, was 22,626,334, and the excess of 
births over deaths in the year was 246,488. The number of children born 
alive was 959,676; 351,346 persons were married, and 513,188 died; so that 
on an average upon every day in the year 2080 children were born, 962 per- 
sons married, and 1405 died, leaving a gain of 675 as the result of the day. 
Rather more than twice as many are born in a year as are married. To 1000 
persons living in the two countries, the births in the year were 34 in Great 
Britain, 27 in France, — a very striking difference. The deaths, 23 in Great 
Britain, 24 in France. Persons married, 15.5 in Great Britain, 16.9 in France, 
—a very near equality. 

In England and Wales, to every 1000 girls, 1045 boys were born, and 102 
males died to every 100 females; but there are more females than males liv- 
ing in England, and out of equal numbers living, 195 males died to every 
100 females, the average in twenty-one years being 107. The births are 
always most numerous in the first half of the year. There were 43,305 chil- 
dren born out of wedlock in the year, or one in every fifteen of all the chil- 
dren born alive. The proportion of boys among the illegitimate births is 
larger than among the legitimate by about 2 in every 100. The marriages 
of minors increase. The proportion of mmors in 10,000 persons marrying 
increased from 885 in 1843 to 1212 in 1858. The marriages in 1858 were less 
than the average. The mortality was high. The number of merchant sea- 
men at sea is calculated at 177,832, and 3486 deaths at sca among this class 
are reported for the year. 


STATISTICS OF SUICIDE. 


A work on suicide, recently published by a Frenchman, M. Lisle, states 
that in France, from 1836 to 1852, inclusive, there were 52,126 suicides, or a 
mean of 3066 a year. Before 1836 the proportion was 1 suicide to every 
17,693 inhabitants. In 1836 it was 1 for 14,207, and in 1852 it had risen to 1 
for 9340. In 1858 and 1839 England had 1 suicide for every 15,900 inhabit- 
ants; france 1 for eyery 12,489. Between London and Paris, for the same 
years, the difference is yet more remarkable, the figures being, for London, 1 
in 8250, and for Paris 1 in 2221. The north of France is the most prolific in 
suicides; nearly half of the whole number belongs to the north, which has 
increased its own ratio by one-third. The north has | in 6483, the east 1 in 
13,855, the south 1 in 20,457. The department of the Seine, which includes 
Paris, has risen with frightful rapidity; but Paris and Marseilles, and all 
large centres, are the foci of suicides to a very striking extent. Russia stands 
the lowest of European states in the scale, her suicides being only 1 in 
49,182, while Prussia has 1 in .14,404, Austria 1 in 20,900, New York 1 in 
7797, Boston 1 in 12,500, Baltimore 1 in 13,650, and Philadelphia 1 in 11,873. 
The author maintains that suicide is not always a sign of mental alienation, 
but, like every other human movement, obeys fixed laws, and that hence, 
year by year, it can be confidently predicted how many out of a certain 
population will commit suicide. The opinion is expressed that climate has 
little to do with the matter, and the author says that in latitude from forty- 
two degrees to fifty-four degrees the proportion is 1 in 38,882; from fifty- 


ZOOLOGY. Sua 


four degrees to sixty-four degrees, 1 in 56,577. Yet the last figures include 
Moscow and St. Petersburg, and represent a much more rigorous, damp, 
uncertain, and joyless climate than the first. 


HEIGHT OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 


M. Silbermann, secretary of the French section of the Association for 
International Uniformity of Weights and Measures, shows that the average 
height of the male and female population of France, taken in a certain posi- 
tion which he names the “ geometric,” is 1.600040 metres, or two metres if 
(in the same position) the hands are comfortably extended over the head. 
Two individuals laid lengthwise, with fingers touching, would thus measure 
four metres, which he terms the base of the harmonic proportions of the 
human race. Thus this harmonic base is four times one metre, just as the 
meridian is four times ten million metres, and the relation of the two inte- 
gers is as 1 to 10,000,000. From these considerations he draws proof of the 
equality of the sexes, as they exhibit woman, not as a complement to the 
male portion of creation, but as constituting of right half the human fam- 
ily, “as determined by Christian philosophy and the laws of the most civil- 
ized people,” in which latter category we cannot, according to this text, at 
present be arranged, as our law still commits the barbarism of regarding a 
married woman as- completely merged in the existence of her husband. 
Pursuing his calculations, M. Silbermann arrives at the conclusion that the 
average height of the human race has remained unchanged since the Chal- 
dean epoch, four thousand years ago. 

Human Proportions.—M. Bonomi of France, in a recent publication, 
describes a curious invention of the English sculptor, Gibson, for producing 
strictly geometrical elevations of the human figure, which accord exactly 
with the proportions assigned to it in the “Canon of Vitruvius.” This 
canon is supposed to be founded on the celebrated proportions laid down by 
Polycletus. They display some most curious geometrical relations between 
the parts of the human figure. Thus the measure from the crown of the 
head to the sole of the foot is exactly equal to the measure from the extrem- 
ity of one hand to the extremity of the other when the arms are extended; 
the face, from the chin to the highest point of the forchead, whence the hair 
begins, is a tenth of the whole stature; so also the hand, from the wrist to 
the extremity of the middle finger; the length of the foot is a sixth part of 
the height of the entire frame. 


ON THE COLORING-MATTER OF CERTAIN FRESH-WATER SHELLS. 


Atarecent meeting of the Philadelphia Academy, Mr. Lea read extracts 
from letters of Dr. Lewis, of Mohawk, N. Y., on the subject of the coloring- 
matter of the nacre of the genus Unio, and exhibited some fine specimens to 
illustrate the subject. The following extracts will fully convey Dr. Lewis’s 
ideas on this subject, which has much interest with the naturalist : — 

I hinted something about Uniones being colored with an oxide or salt of 
gold. My reasons for this are derived from observing some singular phe- 
nomena in colors on submitting shells to the action of chloride of gold, and 
then bringing them in contact with tin. Whether a stannate of gold formed 
and precipitated on the shells or not, I cannot say; but the colors were vety 


much intensified. It is to be remarked that the colors of such shells as Unio 
32* 


378 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


complanatus and of U. ligamentinus, when colored, are such as result from the 
presence of gold in a state of atomic division and dissemination in a semi- 
opaque body. I think nitro-muriatic acid, with a minute trace of gold in it, 
if applied to shells, will produce colors, but I never have satisfactorily demon- 
strated this. My observations are derived from having once used acid in 
which was a small quantity of gold, too small to be reclaimed. 

I notice that colors are most brilliant in regions where gold may be sus- 
pected. In the lake regions of the Western States minerals are abundant, 
and the conditions are not incompatible with the supposition that gold is 
sparingly disseminated among them, in quantities too small, perhaps, to be 
available, but no doubt it is there. 

As regards colors in the nacre of Uniones, you are correct in saying that 
Uniones are colored where there is no gold. But there are some species that 
are not colored unless you find them in some particular localities. If that is 
taken into consideration, we shall, perhaps, be more ready to accept the gold 
theory. Modern investigations show that gold exists in soils that, until they 
were rigidly tested, were not suspected to contain it. In fact, lam disposed 
to believe that gold is more universally disseminated than is generally sup- 
posed. ‘ 

But the question is one I take no particular interest in, except that it pre- 
sents itself incidentally. I know one fact that you also know: that of two 
streams producing identically the same species, one will give a large propor- 
tion of white nacres, and the other will present colored nacres; and usually 
we also notice another phenomenon, a greater brilliancy of nacre where rich 
colors abound. In this case, I have my private opinion that gold produces 
its peculiar tonic effect, for tonic it is under certain circumstances, by 
increasing the secretions. 

To have gold in a shell, it is not necessary that it should be an oxide. It 
is only necessary it should have been received into the circulation of the 
animal in solution, as chloride, or some other possible soluble form that 
chemistry has not brought to light; and, when once in the circulation, it 
may be eliminated, by being deprived of its solving principle, and excreted 
or secreted with the other solid matter that enters into the formation of the 
shell. The stannate of gold, or purple of Cassius, may be wholly deprived 
of the tin associated with it, yet retain its purple color, and its condition of 
atomic division, if so you are pleased to call it. But I only offer this as sug- 


gestive of something for those interested to follow further. I am not enough 


of a chemist to develop any facts out of a suspicion of this kind. 

Mr. Lea remarked, after reading the above extracts, that the purple, pink, 
and salmon colors of many of our American Unionide had had his attention 
from the period of his first studying this beautiful and interesting family, 
more than thirty years since. Without having experimented himself upon 
them, he was aware that no chemist had been able to detect the presence of 
a metal or other elementary body. He therefore thought it likely to be 
caused by the presence of some organic body which had not yet been 
detected; such is supposed by chemists to be the case with the colored fluates 
of lime, colored quartz, etc. What Dr. Lewis states as regards the colors 
being more frequent and more intense in the waters of Michigan, and in the 
streams leading into the northern great lakes from the southern side, is very 
true. The Unio rectus is usually white in the Ohio, though sometimes tinted 
with purple and salmon-color, while in the more northern waters it is usually 
of a fine; rich purple or salmon. Two specimens from the upper Mississippi, 


ZOOLOGY. 379 


brought by Dr. Cooper, were exhibited by Mr. Lea, which were of exquisite 
purple and salmon. The Unio ligamentinus has probably never been found 
pink or purple in the Ohio; while at Grand Rapids, Mich., those with a fine 
pink and salmon-color are very common. The Margaritana margaritifera of 
Columbia river and its tributaries has a fine purple nacre in almost all the 
specimens, rarely white, while those in the rivers of Pennsylvania, Connec- 
ticut, and Massachusetts are almost universally white, as those from the 
northern part of Europe are aiso. 

Dr. Draper had informed Mr. Lea that he had calcined some of these 
purpie shells, but that they had burned white, and he had not detected any 
metallic substance in their composition. The subject was certainly one weil 
worth the pursuit, as no doubt could remain that the color was derived from 
some foreign substance entering into the composition of some individuals, 
while others were free from it. It was not an uncommon case to find the 
dorsal portion of the nacre to be pink or purple, while the other portions 
were white; and this was also sometimes the case with the cavity of the 
beaks. Mr. Lea did not believe the color arose, as some persons supposed, 
from the structure of the surface of the nacre dividing the rays of light by 
thin laminations. This division of color was exhibited in almost every 
species, and is what naturalists call the ‘‘ pearly hue,” oftentimes of great 
beauty, but quite a different matter from the pink, purple, and salmon-color 
of the mass of the carbonate of lime composing the substance of the valves. 


ON THE NUMBER OF THE UNIONIDZ IN THE UNITED STATES. 


At a recent meeting of the Philadelphia Academy, Mr. Isaac Lea gave the 
following statement respecting the number of the Unionide in the United 
States : — 


Unio; . : n : - - : - 465 species. 
Margaritana, : : - eed aa oe 
Anodonta, 5 F - - - oe. OO nes 
550 
To these may be added new species in his cabinet 
not yet described, . = : - 30 
580 


And to these may be added, for North America, 
known to inhabit Mexico, Honduras, Cen- 
tral America, and one in Canada, 

Unio, 3 : : ; 29 
Anodonta, : - - Saks: 


Mr. Lea further observed that we have not in North America either of the 
genera Triquetra (Hyria, Lam.), Prisodon (Castalia, Lam.), Monocondylaa, 
Mycetopus, Byssandonta, or Plagiodon. They are all emphatically South 
American types, while there does not seem to inhabit the southern half of 
America a single species of Margaritana (Alasmodonta, Say.). Ferussac has 
described a species (A. incurva) as coming from South America, but there is 
reasonable doubt of it. The Monocondylea and Margaritana seem mutually 
to replace each other. The Uniones and Anodonte prevail in both parts of 


880 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


the continent over all the other genera, both as to numbers and universality 
of distribution. The genus DMulleria (Acostea, D’Orb.) has only been found 
in the tributaries of the Magdalena, in New Granada. 

In reflecting on the profusion of this kind of animal life in the United 

tates, the naturalist is astonished at the great number of forms character- 
istic of the various species; and he is the more struck with the extent of it, 
when a comparison is made with the small number of species which inhabit 
the continent of Europe, there not being in the fresh waters of that quarter 
of the globe more, perhaps, than ten species; viz. seven Uniones, one Mar- 
garitana, one Monocondylwa, and one Anodonta. Mr. Lea stated that he had 
taken great pains to procure specimens from all parts of Europe, and he was 
satisfied that there were nincty-eight synonyms made by European authors 
for the single species of Unodonta cygnea, Draparnaud, the Mytilus cygneus of 
Linnzus, and the synonymy is nearly as profusely erroneous in Unio pic- 
torum, Unio tumidus, Unio Butavus, and Unio littoralis. 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 


NEW PLANETS. 


FIVE additional asteroidal planets have been discovered during the past 
year, making the whole number now recognized sixty-two. 

The fifty-eighth asteroid was discovered March 24th, 1860, by Dr. Luther, 
of the Observatory at Bilk, Germany, and has received the name Concordia. 

The fifty-ninth asteroid was discovered by M. Goldschmidt, of Paris, Sep- 
tember 9th, and has received the name of Dane. 

The sixtieth asteroid was discovered by M. Chacornac, of Paris, September 
12th, 1860. 

The sixty-first asteroid was discovered September 14th, 1850, by Messrs. 
Forster and Lesser, of Berlin, Prussia, and has received the name of Erato. 

The sixty-second asteroid was discovered by Mr. James Ferguson, of the 
National Observatory, Washington, D. C., September 15th, 1860, and has 
received the name of Titania. 


VEGETATION ON THE MOON’S SURFACE. 


On the surface of the moon are seen numerous streaks, or narrow lines, 
about a hundred in number, which appear, perhaps, more like long, narrow 
furrows than anything else. Sometimes they spread themselves on the lunar 
disk in straight lines; sometimes they are seen slightly curved; in every case 
they are shut in between stiff parallel borders. It has often been supposed 
that these furrows, the true nature of which has hitherto remained unknown, 
represent the beds of ancient, dried-up rivers, or rivers that have not yet 
ceased to flow. Other astronomers think they are streams of lava which 
have been vomited by lunar volcanoes, and which reflect the light of the sun 
with more intensity than the adjacent regions. M. Schwabe, a German 
astronomer, endeavors, however, to give them another explanation. He has 
published in the Astronomische Nachrichten some facts which tend to show 
that these lines are the result of a vegetation on the surface of the moon. 
According to the author, if the surface of the moon be examined attentively 
with a good telescope and a proper illumination, we discover between the 
lines or luminous furrows of the high mountain called Tycho, and on different 
other points, a quantity of very delicate parallel lines of a greenish tint, which 
were not visible some months before the observation, and which disappear 
some months after, to return again in the proper season. These lines, which 
are darker than the adjacent parts, are apparently the result of vegetation; 


3382 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


and it is this veretation which makes the sterile parts of the moon appear 
as bright Juminous streaks. According to M. Schwabe, these lines of vege- 
tation are more particularly visible in the very bright parts of the moon, 
which are circumscribed by a number of particularly prominent mountain 
peaks. 


LEVERRIER’S NEW PLANET “ VULCAN.” 


On the 2d of January, 1850, M. LeVerrier communicated to the Academy 
of Sciences a remarkable paper on the theory of Mercury. In studying the 
twenty-one transits of that body over the sun between 1697 and 1848, he 
found that the observations could not be represented by the received ele- 
ments of the planet, but that they could be all represented, nearly to a 
second, by augmenting by thirty-eight seconds the secular motion of the 
perihelion of Mercury. In order to justify such an increase we must in- 
crease the mass attributed to Venus one-tenth at least of its value, which, 
from sixty years’ meridian observations, has been found to be the four 
hundred thousandth part of that of the sun. If we admit this increased 
mass of Venus, we must conclude, either that the secular variation of the 
obliquity of the ecliptic, deduced from observations, is affected with errors 
by no means probable, or that the obliquity is changed by other causes 
wholly unknown to us. If, on the other hand, we regard the variation of 
the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the causes which produce it, as well estab- 
lished, we must believe that the excess of motion in the perihelion of Mercury 
is due to some unknown action. 

“T do not intend,” says M. LeVerrier, ‘‘ to decide absolutely between these 
two hypotheses. I wish only to draw the attention of astronomers toa grave 
difficulty, and to make it the subject of a serious discussion.”” We must, 
therefore, as he suggests, find a cause which shall impress upon the perihe- 
lion of Mercury these thirty-eight seconds of secular motion, without pro- 
ducing any other sensible effect upon the planetary system. 

M. LeVerrier then shows that a planet between Mercury and the sun, the 
size of Mercury, situated at half his mean distance from the sun, if moving 
in a circular orbit slightly inclined to that of Mercury, would produce the 
thirty-eight seconds of secular motion in his perihelion. But when he con- 
siders that such a planet would have certainly a very great brightness, he 
cannot think that it would be invisible at its greatest elongation, or during 
total eclipses of the sun. 

‘All these difficulties,” he adds, ‘‘ disappear, if we admit, in place of a 
single planet, small bodies circulating between Mercury and the sun;” and 
he thinks their existence not at all improbable, seeing that we have already 
a ring of fifty-eight such bodies between Mars and Jupiter. 

A short time subsequent to the publication of this paper, M. LeVerrier 
received a communication from a physician in very humble circumstances, 
in the little town of Orgeres,in France, — M. Lescarbault, —stating that he 
had “‘ actually discovered an intra-Mercurial planet making a transit across 
the disk of the sun.” 

The circumstances of the case were bricfly as follows: — 

M. Lescarbault, who had studied astronomy solely from a love of the 
science, conceived the idea, as far back as 1845, of observing systematically 
the sun, with a view of seeing whether any planet other than Venus or 
Mercury could be detected in making transit across the solar disk. He 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 3883 


accordingly provided and arranged a rude apparatus, ‘and commenced 
observing, whenever the duties of his profession afforded him sufficient 
leisure; and at length, on the 26th of March, 1859, about four o’clock in the 
afternoon, he saw a small dark body enter the sun’s disk. Its circumference 
was well defined. Its angular diameter, as seen from the earth, was very 
small; and he estimated it as less than one-fourth the size of Mercury, which 
he had seen with the same telescope, and the same magnifying power, when 
it passed over the sun on the 8th of May, 1845. His calculations from his 
data also led him to the conclusion that the planet’s distance from the sun 
was about 0.1427, its period less than twenty days, its ascending node situ- 
ated at about thirteen degrees of longitude, and its inclination between 
twelve and thirteen degrees. 

Possessed of a sensitive and reserved nature, and doubting the reality of his 
discovery, M. Lescarbault hesitated to make it known, and it. was only after 
vainly waiting nine months, to verify his observation by another view of the 
object, that he prepared a letter, narrating what he thought he had seen, and 
sent it to LeVerrier. The latter, considering that his official position (Direc- 
tor of the National Observatory) required that he should probe such state- 
ments to the bottom, and prevent the success of anything like an attempt to 
palm off a fraud on the public, at once visited Orgeres, and, accompanied by 
a single friend, made his way direct and unannounced to the house of M. 
Lescarbault. The following graphic account of what here passed is given 
by M. Moigno, in the “ Cosmos,” and is stated to be given nearly as recounted 
by M. LeVerricr to an assembly of friends on his return : — 

On their arrival, M. LeVerrier knocked loudly at the door, which was 
opened by the doctor himself, but his visitor declined to give his name. The 
simple, modest, timid Lescarbault, small in stature, stood abashed before the 
tall LeVerrier, who, in blunt intonation, addressed him thus: “It is then 
you, sir, who pretend to have discovered the intra-Mercurial planet, and who 
have committed the grave offence of keeping your discovery secret for nine 
months! I warn you that I have come with the intention of doing justice to 
your pretensions, and of demonstrating either that you have been dishonest 
or deceived. Tell me unequivocally what you have seen.” The lamb-like 
doctor trembled like an aspen-leaf at this rude summons, and stammered out 
the following reply : — 

“On the 26th of March, about four o’clock, I turned my telescope to the 
stn, when to my surprise I saw, at a small distance from its margin, a biack 
spot, well defined, and perfectly round, advancing upon the disk of the sun. 
A customer called me away, and hurrying him off as fast as I could, I came 
back to my glass, when I found the round spot had continued its transit, and 
I saw it disappear from the opposite margin of the sun, after a projection upon 
it of an hour and a half.”’— “ You will then have determined,” asks LeVer- 
rier, “the time of the first and last contact; and you are aware that the 
observation of the first contact is one of such extreme delicacy that profes- 
sional astronomers often fail in observing it? ””— “‘ Pardon me, sir,” replies 
the doctor, ‘‘I do not pretend to have seized the precise moment of contact. 
The round spot was upon the disk when I first perceived it. I measured 
carefully its distance from the margin, and, expecting that it would describe 
an equal distance, I counted the time which it took to describe this second dis- 
tance, and I thus determined approximately the instant of its entry.”— “ To 
count the time is easy to say, but where is your chronometer ?’’— “ My chro- 
nometer is a watch with minutes, the faithful companion of my professional 


384 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


journeys.”’—“ What! with that old watch, showing only minutes, dare you 
talk of estimating seconds? My suspicions are already too well founded.””— 
‘Pardon me,” was the reply, ‘‘I have also a pendulum which nearly beats 
seconds.””—‘‘ Show me this pendulum,” says LeVerrier. The doctor goes up 
stairs, and brings down a silk thread, to which an ivory ball was suspended. 
“T am anxious to see how skilfully you can thus reckon seconds.” The 
lamb acquiesces. He fixes the upper end of the thread to a nail, and after 
the ivory ball has come to rest, he draws it a little from the vertical, and 
counts the number of oscillations corresponding with a minute on his watch, 
and thus proves that his pendulum beats seconds. “This is not enough,” 
replies the lion; ‘‘it is one thing that your pendulum beats seconds, but it is 
another that you have the sentiment of the second beaten by your pendulum 
in order that you may count the seconds in observing.’”’—“‘ Shall I venture to 
tell you,” says the lamb, “‘ that my profession is to feel pulses and to count 
their pulsations? My pendulum puts the second in my ears, and I have no 
difficulty in counting several successive seconds.” 

“‘This is all very well for the chapter of time,’ says the director; “ but, ia 
order to see so delicate a spot, you require a good telescope. Have you 
one?”’? — “Yes, sir; I have succeeded, not without difficulty, privation, and 
suffering, to obtain for myself a telescope. After practising much economy, 
I purchased from M. Cauche, an artist little known, though very clever, an 
object-glass nearly four inches in diameter. Knowing my enthusiasm and 
my poverty, he gave me the choice among several excellent ones; and, as 
soon as I made the selection, I mounted it on a stand, with all its parts; 
and I have recently indulged myself with a revolving platform, and a revoly- 
ing roof, which will soon be in action.” The lion went to the upper story, 
and satisfied himself of the accuracy of the statement. ‘“‘ This is all well,” 
says he, ‘in so far as the observation itself is concerned; but I want to see 
the original memorandum which you made of it.” 

“Tt is very easy,” answered the doctor, “to say you want it; but though 
this note was written on a small square of paper, which I generally throw 
away or burn when it is of no further use, yet it is possible I may still find 
it.’ Running with fear to his Connaissance des Temps, he finds the note of 
the 26th March, 1859, performing the part of a marker, and covered with 
grease and laudanum. The lion seizes it greedily, and, comparing it wiih 
the letter which M. Vallée had brought him, he exclaims: “ But, sir, you 
have falsified this observation; the time of emergence is four minutes too 
late.”? — “‘It is,’ replied the lamb. ‘‘Have the goodness to examine more 
narrowly, and you will find that the four minutes is the error of my watch, 
regulated by sidereal time.’? —“‘ This is true; but how do you regulate your 
watch by sidereal time?” — “I have a small telescope, —here it is, — which 
you will find in such a state as to enable me to tell the time to a second, or 
even to some fractions of a second.” 

Satisfied 6n this point, LeVerrier then wished to know how he determined 
the two angular coordinates of the points of contact, of the entry and emerg- 
ence of the planet, and how he measured the chord of the arc which separates 
these two points. Lescarbault told him that this was reduced to the measur- 
ing the distances of these points from the vertical and the angles of posi- 
tion, which he did by the systems of parallel axes we have mentioned, and 
the divided circle of card-board placed upon his finder. 

LeVerrier next inquired if he had made any attempt to deduce the planct’s 
distance from the sun from the period of four hours which it required to 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 385 


describe an entire diameter of the sun. The doctor confessed that he had 
made attempts to do this, but, not being a mathematician, he had not suc- 
ceeded; and that this failure was the reason why he had delayed the announce- 
ment of. his discovery. LeVerrier having asked for the rough draught of 
these calculations, the doctor replied: “‘ My rough draughts! Paper is rather 
scarce with us. I am a joiner, as well as an astronomer. I calculate in my 
workshop, and I write upon the boards; and when I am done, [ plane them 
off and begin again. But I think I have preserved them.” On visiting the 
shop, they found the board, with all its lines and numbers still unobliter- 
ated. 

The Parisian savan was now convinced that Lescarbault had really seen 
the planet whose existence he had himself foretold. Turning to the doctor, 
he revealed his personality, and congratulated his humble brother on the 
magnificent discovery thus confirmed. It was the event in the Orgeres phy- 
sician’s life. Honors poured in upon him. The cross of the Legion of 
Honor was sent to him from Paris. His name was at once enrolled in the 
lists of the leading scientific academies of Europe, and his professional 
brethren in Paris, anxious to testify of their regard, invited him to a public 
banquet in Paris, in the Hotel de Louvre. Other similar offers were made him 
from other cities in France; but he deciined all invitations, pleading as an 
excuse his simple and retired habits, and the difficulty of leaving the patients 
under his charge. 

LeVerrier, from a careful Samiti of all of Lescarbault’s data, con- 
siders that the new planet — to which he gives the name of Vulcan — is. one- 
seventeenth of the bulk of Mercury, which is much too small to account for 
all the perturbations of the latter. He concludes that it performs its journey 
round the sun in nineteen days seven hours, and that half the major axis of 
its orbit is equal to 0.1427, taking half the major axis of the earth’s orbit as 
unity. On account of its limited orbit, it would never be more than eight 
degrees from the sun, which, with its feeble light, will account for its not 
having been observed before. LeVerricr also conjectures that this small 
body forms one of a group of planets between Mercury and the sun, which 
yet remain to be discovered. 

The publication of these facts early in the past year excited the greatest 
sensation in the scientific world, and since then astronomers of all ranks 
have been anxiously watching for the reappearance of the new planet during 
the time when it was likeiy to make its transit across the sun. No redis- 
covery of it, however, has yet heen made; but the searching of astronomical 
records has brought to light many interesting cases, in which a round black 
spot has been seen upon the solar disk. M. Wolff, of Zurich, has given a 
list of not less than twenty observations, or affirmations, made since 1762, 
that a black spot has passed across the sun; and Mr. Carrington, of England, 
has added other cases, the most important of which are contained in the 
following list: 


Diaudacher, - - - . 1762, end of February. 
Lichtenberg, . = - é . 17638, November 19th. 
lloffmann, . : : 1764, beginning of May. 
Scheuten and Crefeld, F Z . 1764, June 6th. 

Daugos, = : é : 1798, January 18th, 2 Pp» M. 
Eritsch7 **- : 3 : F . 1802, October 10th. 

Capel Lofft, . ; : , - 1818, January 6th, 11 A. mM. 
Stark, 2 a 2 : ; . 1819, October 9th. 


33 


386 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Stark,l . «me . - 1820, February 12th, 12h. 
Steinhiibel, . ¥ ‘ ° - 1820, February, 12th. 
Schmidt, . . - « » 1847, October 11th, 9 «a. m. 


Upon comparing the three observations of Daugos, Fritsch, and Stark, 
made in 1798, 1802, and 1819, M. Wolff found that they were satisfied by a 
planet whose period of revolution is thirty-eight and a half days, or, what 
is the same thing, nineteen and a quarter days, which agrees so remarkably 
with the number 19.7, deduced by LeVerrier from the observations of Les- 
carbault, that we cannot ascribe it to chance. 

Upon the supposition that the black spots seen upon the sun by the astrono- 
mers above mentioned are bodies between Mercury and the sun, M. Wolff is 
of opinion that the observations can only be reconciled by the admission of 
at least three intra-Mercurial planets. 

The history of the discovery of this supposed new planet unfortunately 
does not close here, inasmuch as an eminent astronomer, and that astrono- 
mer a Frenchman, has presented himself boldly in the face of Europe, not 
only to question the existence of such a body, but to charge its discoverer 
with dishonesty, and impugn the very theoretical principles on which one of 
the greatest astronomers of the age had foretold its discovery. 

M. Liais, a French astronomer in the service of the Brazilian government, 
in a published paper, asserts: 

1. That the observation of M. Lescarbault is false. 

2. Contrary to the assertion of M. LeVerrier, every planet nearer the sun 
than Mercury will be more visible, with telescopes, in the vicinity of the 
sun than he is. 

3. That in eclipses of the sun the planet of Lescarbault has not been 
seen. 

4. M. LeVerrier’s hypothesis, that there is a powerful disturbing cause 
between Mercury and the sun, is founded on the supposition that astronom- 
ical observations have a precision of which they are not susceptible. 

1. In support of the first of these bold assertions, our author states that, 
at the very time when the French astronomer was looking at the black spot 
on the sun’s face, he, M. Liais, was examining the sun with a telescope of 


1 This black spot was nearly twice the apparent diameter of Mercury. ‘At 
noon,” says Canon Stark, “this spot was 11/ 20/7 distant from the east limb, and 
14/ 17/’ from the south limb of the sun; and at 4h. 23m. in the evening it was no 
longer to be seen. The appearance was rather indicative of the transit of a plane- 
tary heavenly body, having its path included within that of Mercury, than of a 
solar spot.” — Meteorologische Jahrbuch, 1820. 

This remarkable observation has been confirmed, says Mr. Carrington, in a pas- 
sage of a letter from Olbers to Bessels, dated 20th June, 1820 (Corr. v. ii., p. 162): 
‘“‘ What do you say to Steinhiibel’s observation of a dark, round, well-defined spot, 
which on the 12th of February of this year completed its transit across the sun’s 
disk in five hours? If the thing is a fact, it indicates a planet interior to the orbit 
of Mercury.” 

The spot, called small and sub-elliptic, and six or eight seconds in diameter, seen 
by Capel Lofft on the 6th January, 1818, was observed about 24h. P. M., consider- 
ably advanced on the sun’s disk, and a little west of the sun’s centre. It was seen 
also by Mr. Acton. ‘Its rate of motion seemed inconsistent with that of the solar 
rotation, and both in figure, density, and regularity of path, it seemed utterly 
unlike floating scoria. In short, its progress over the sun’s disk seems to have 
exceeded that of Venus in transit.”»— Monthly Magazine, January 10, 1818. 


’ 
: 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 387 


twice the magnifying power, and did not perceive it. This observation was 
made in the bay of Rio Janeiro, at St. Domingos, when M. Liais was care- 
fully determining the decrease in the luminosity of the sun from its centre 
to its circumference, and from its equator to its poles. The first of these 
observations was made between 11h. 4m. and 11h. 20m., and, from the inter- 
ruption of clouds, the second was made between 12h. 42m. and 1h. 17m., on 
the very part of the sun where M. Lescarbauit saw the planet enter, and at 
atime when it must have been during a period of twelve minutes on the sun’s 
disk, and 1/.4 from its margin. “This quantity,’ says M. Liais, “is too 
great to be accounted for by the difference of the parallaxes of Orgeres and 
St. Domingos; and, consequently, when I made my last comparison, I ought 
to have seen upon the sun the black spot in question if it had been seen at 
Orgeres.”’ It is certainly not easy to conceive how M. Liais could have 
missed seeing the black spot when he was using a fine telescope, and mak- 
ing such a nice observation on the light of the sun’s disk at the very place 
where the planet should have been; and had he continued his observations 
even for a few minutes longer, we should have admitted the force of his 
argument; but twelve minutes is so short a time, that it is just possible that 
the planet may not have entered upon the sun during the time that he 
observed it. Still, however, he is entitled to assert, as he does, “that he is 
in a condition to deny, in the most positive manner, the passage of a planet 
over the sun at the time indicated.” 

M. Liais proceeds to support his astronomical fact by a moral argument, 
which, we think, has not much force. He says, what is true, that Lescar- 
bault contradicts himself in having first asserted that he saw the planet 
enter upon the sun’s disk, and having afterwards admitted to LeVerrier that 
it had been on the disk some seconds before he saw it, and that he had 
merely inferred the time of its entry from the rate of its motion afterwards. 
“Tf this one assertion, then,’ says M. Liais, “be fabricated, the whole 
may be so;” a conclusion which we cannot accept. These arguments M. 
Liais considers to be strengthened by the assertion, which, as we have seen, 
perplexed LeVerrier himself, that if M. Lescarbault had actually seen a 
planet on the sun, he could not have kept it secret for nine months. 

2. The assertion of our author, in opposition to that of LeVerrier, that the 
planet, if one existed, ought to be seen in the vicinity of the sun, is not so 
easily answered. 

In support of this opinion, he enters into an elaborate calculation of the 
brightness of the planet Vulcan compared with that of Mercury. He 
asserts that, from its proximity to the sun, it must be seven and one-third 
times brighter than Mercury. But Mercury has been seen by himself and 
others within 7° or 8° of the sun, and, therefore, assuming the diameter of 
Vulcan to be 2//5 (for which he assigns good reasons from Lescarbault’s 
observations), the total light which it sends to the earth will be nearly 
double that of Mercury; and, consequently, Vulcan, or LeVerrier’s Ring of 
Planets, ought to have been frequently seen by astronomers in the vicinity 
of the sun, when they were searching for planets and comets in that 
locality. 

3. The assertion that the planet of Lescarbault has not been seen during 
eclipses of the sun, is of course true. 

As the planet Mercury has been frequently observed during solar eclipses, 
we might reasonably expect to have seen Vulcan; but during the many 
observations which were made in the vicinity of the sun during the time 


388 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of the total eclipse of July 1860, no appearance of any intra-Mercurial 
planet was detected. 

Taking, then, into consideration the numerous observations that have 
been made on the sun and in its vicinity by so many astronomers, and with 
such fine telescopes, M. Liais concludes “ that if the motion of the perihelion 
of Mercury is due to the attraction of matter lying between the san and 
this planet, this matter does not form planets, properly so called, but must 
be in a state of cosmical dust, and form a part of the solar nebulosity or 
zodiacal light.” 

4. M. Liais’s last observation, questioning the existence of a disturbing 
force requiring for its cause the existence of a planet or planets, merits, 
doubtless, the attention of astronomers. The motion of the perihelion of 
Mercury has been deduced from twelve observed passages of this planet. 
Admitting the time of the planet’s entrance upon the sun’s disk to be 
affected with refraction, M. Liais has obtained, by calculation, a motion of 
the perihelion so much less than that assnmed by LeVerrier, that he can 
account for it by supposing the mass of Venus to be from the tenth to the 
fifteenth greater than it is supposed to be. By admitting a possible error in 
the obliquity of the ecliptic of two and one-half seconds, and, consequently, 
an increase of one-tenth in the mass of Venus, M. Liais asserts that the 
whole motion in the perihelion of Mercury may be explained; and he fur- 
ther asserts that, by abandoning the invariability of the mean motions, 
which supposes a constancy in the masses, of which there is no proof, the 
position of Mercury may be explained without supposing so great a motion 
in his perihelion as has been alleged. 

To these remarkable positions assumed by M. Liais no reply has been 
made by either LeVerrier or Lescarbault. As already stated, however, since 
the announcement of the discovery the san has been anxiously observed by 
astronomers; and the limited area around him in which the planet must be, 
if he is not upon the sun, has doubtless been explored with equal care by 
telescopes of high power and processes by which the sun’s direct light has 
been excluded from the tube of the telescope as well as the eye of the ob- 
server; and yet no planet has been found. This fact would entitle us to 
conclude that no such planet exists, if its existence had been merely conjec- 
tured, or if it had been deduced from any of the laws of planetary distance, 
or even if LeVerrier or Adams had announced it as the probable result of 
planetary perturbations. If the finest telescopes cannot rediscover a planet 
that has a visible disk, with a power of three hundred, as used by Liais, 
within so limited an area as a circle of sixteen degrees, of which the sun is 
the centre, or rather within a narrow belt of that circle, we should unhesitat- 
ingly declare that no such planet exists; but the question assumes a very 
different aspect when it involves moral considerations. If, after the severe 
scrutiny which the sun and its vicinity will undergo, no planet shall be seen, 
and if no round black spots distinctly separable from the usual solar spots 
shall not be seen on the solar disk, we will not dare to assert that it does not 
exist. We cannot doubt the honesty of M. Lescarbault, and we ean hardly 
believe that he was mistaken. No solar spot, no floating scoria, could main- 
tain, in its passage over the sun, a cifcular and uniform shape; and we are 
confident that no other hypothesis but that of an intra-Mercurial planet can 
explain the phenomena seen and measured by M. Lescarbault — a man of 
high character, possessing excellent instruments, and in every way compe- 
tent to use them well, and to describe clearly and correctly the result of his 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 389 


observations. ‘Time, however, tries facts as well as speculations. The phe- 
nomena observed by the French astronomer may never be again seen, and 
the disturbance of Mercury, which rendered it probable, may be otherwise 
explained. Should this be the case, we must refer the round spot on the sun 
to some of those illusions of the eye orof the brain which have sometimes 
disturbed the tranquillity of science. — North British Review. 


SOLAR ECLIPSE OF JULY 18ru, 1860. 


The total eclipse of the sun, which occurred July 18th, 1860, was probably 
more fully and carefully observed than any former similar phenomenon, and 
the results, as might have been expected, are correspondingly valuable and 
interesting. We propose, in the present article, to give a popular résumé of 
the most important of these results, so far as they have been laid before the 
public. 

In this country, an expedition, under the auspices of the Coast Survey, 
and under the general charge of Professor Stephen Alexander, of Princeton, 
N.J., aided by President Barnard, of the University of Mississippi, Professor 
Smith, of the Naval School of Annapolis, and other scientific men, proceeded 
in a government vessel to Cape Chidley, Labrador, the most favorable point 
on the Atlantic coast for observing the totality of obscuration of the solar disk. 
This expedition selected an observing station a few seconds short of 59° 48’ 
latitude; longitude, by chronometer, 4h. 16m. 53s. W.; while the track of the 
central eclipse left the eastern coast of Labrador in lat. 59° 514/. The 
weather on the day of the eclipse was not entirely favorable; and just pre- 
vious to the time of the sun’s total immersion, a thin veil of clouds inter- 
vened between it and the observers, not dense enough to intercept the direct 
rays of the luminary, but too dense to allow the corona surrounding the 
dark moon during total obscuration to be visible. One observer was, how- 
ever, fortunate enough to catch one point of brightness and to fix its posi- 
tion in this corona. The color of this bright point was white, and not 
ruddy. 

The whole astronomical corps observed the breaking up of the last line of 
solar light lingering before total obscuration into the fragments commonly 
called ‘‘ Baily’s Beads,” from Francis Baily, President of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society, by whom they were-described in the Mem. Astr. Soc. for 1837, 
as observed by him in the annular eclipse of 1836. These fragments were 
very evanescent, and were not preceded by those longer dark filaments or 
ligaments noticed by Mr. Baily on the same occasion, and, more or less per- 
fectly, by others since. At the emergence of the sun the beads were not 
noticed, owing probably to the veil of clouds. The darkness which prevailed 
during total obscuration was not as remarkable as had been anticipated by 
most of the observers. Mr. Barnard, in a communication to Silliman’s Jour- 
nal (from whose statement the above facts are gathered), states that he 
“‘found no difficulty in making pencil notes at this time, or in reading lines 
written in pencil in other parts of his note-book. It was not necessary to 
bring the book nearer to the eye than usual.” 

Observations on the eclipse were also made, under the direction of the 
United States Coast Survey on the Pacific coast, at Steilacoom, Washington 
Territory, by Lieutenant Gillis, U.S. A. From the report made by Lieut. 
Gillis to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey we derive the following 
particulars: The sun at this locality rose eclipsed. At the moment of total-. 

33% 


390 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


ity, beads of golden and ruby-colored light flashed almost entirely around 
the moon, not constant even for a second at one point, but fitfully flashing, 
as reflection from rippled water, and as mutable in the respective places of 
the colors. This bead-thread broke up suddenly, when, for the first time, 
protuberances were noticed beyond the following limb of the moon. The 
largest one was in the form of a flattened cone or pyramid of cumulus cloud, 
about one minute in height by two minutes broad at the base. The cloud was 
not a uniform mass, but apparently an aggregation of small ones, and its 
general tint was a rosy pink, with occasional spots and edges of yellowish 
white light, as though sunlight shone obliquely through them. This was an 
extremely beautiful sight, and occupied Mr. Gillis so intently that he lost the 
beat of the chronometer. It was then so dark that he could not see the 
second-dial on the gold chronometer without a lantern. “ Raising my face 
to the telescope,” says Lieutenant Gillis, “a most extraordinary scene was 
apparent. Over the moon’s black disk colors of the spectrum flashed in 
intersecting circles of equal diameter with that body, and each apparently 
revolving towards the lunar centre. The moving colors were not visible be- 
yond the moon, but a halo of virgin white light encircled it, which was quite 
uniformly traceable more than a semi-diameter beyond the black outline. 
This corona was composed of radial beams, or streamers, having slightly 
darker or fainter interstices rather than a disk of regularly diminishing or 
suffusing light; but the gorgeous: appearance of the spectrum circles, with 
their incessantly changing bands of crimson, violet, yellow, and green, 
thoroughly startled me from the equanimity with which the preceding phe- 
nomena had been observed. Nor were these colors physiological results 
from a change of position of the body, or of preceding strain of sight in 
efforts to recognize the division of the second’s dial, in darkness, and subse- 
quent direction of the eye towards the sunlight, for they continued visible 
with the telescope at least ten seconds longer. As near as it was possible to 
estimate, the breadth of each spectrum circle was about two minutes. The 
green colors were not darker than the tint usually called pea-green, and were 
on the edges farthest from their respective centres; but neither of the lines 
seemed to retain a definite position, and I was irresistibly drawn to their con- 
templation, to the neglect of all the changes that might have been taking 
place in the protuberance and corona. 

“‘They vanished with the first appearance of sunlight beyond the western 
limb of the moon, their sudden obliteration causing me to utter an exclama- 
tion which was regarded as the signal for noting the time, a datum whose 
importance had been wholly forgotten in the fascination thus caused. I 
cannot liken them to anything so nearly as to the image seen in the Kaleido- 
scope.” 

An expedition to the mouth of Saskatchewan River, Lake Winnipeg, was 
disappointed in the weather, and made no scientific observations, the sun, 
during the eclipse, being obscured with thick clouds. 

In Europe, the only point where the obscuration of the sun’s disk was 
total was Spain; and here the most eminent astronomers of almost every 
country in Europe gathered—the British government alone placing two 
steamers at the disposal of their scientific corps. About fifty stations were 
occupied, by several hundred observers, among whom were LeVerrier, Airy, 
Whewell, Struvé, Madler, Secchi, and others. 

Before totality commenced, the colors in the sky and on the hills are de- 
scribed as having been magnificent beyond all description; the clear sky in 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 391 


the north assumed a deep indigo color, while in the west the horizon was 
pitch black, like night. In the east the clear sky was very pale blue, with 
orange and red-like sunrise, and the hills in the south were very red. On the 
shadow sweeping across, the deep blue in the north changed like magic to 
pale sunrise tints of orange and red; the colors increased in brilliancy ; 
overhead, the sky was leaden. Some white houses at a little distance were 
brought nearer, and assumed a warm yellow tint. The eclipse-shadow, also, 
is mentioned by several observers. ‘‘Our position,” says an astronomer 
who had his position at Moncayo, “ was very near the central line, and we 
could distinctly mark the heavy black pall as it passed over us from the 
northwest to the southeast; but its course was very rapid, and it seemed to 
sweep past us like the legendary chase of the wild huntsman.”’ 

On the interesting question as to the degree of intensity of the darkness 
produced by a total eclipse, the testimony of observers seems to vary accord- 
ing to their position. The following are some of the statements : — 

“The darkness during totality was less than might have been expected. 
It was easy to read and write the whole time, and no recourse to artificial 
light was necessary.”’— Le Verrier, near Tarrazona. 

“The darkness was great; thermometers could not be read.”— M. Lowe, 
Fuente deal Mar, near Santander. 

“For three minutes it certainly was very dark — much too dark to read, 
though I could just distinguish the figures on my watch; but the moment the 
least limb of the sun reappeared, it was astonishing how instantly the light 
returned; and I can well understand how comparatively small is the diminu- 
tion of light during a partial eclipse, even when the sun is almost completely 
hidden.” — Mr. Packe, summit of Moncayo. 

The effects on man and nature are also thus noticed. Says an observer at 
Santander : — 

“The countenances of the men were of a livid pink. The Spaniards lay 
down, and their children screamed with fear.” 

Says an observer at Vittoria: — 

“Tt is impossible to describe the awe which came over us all. Ido not 
hesitate to say that the whole scene was by far the most wonderful I have 
ever beheid. There is no phenomenon in nature that can compare with it 
in interest.” 

Of the effects of the total obscuration on the brute creation, also, we have 
the most copious accounts. Mr. Lowe, from Fuente del Mar, writes :— 

‘< Fowls hastened to roost, ducks clustered together, pigeons dashed against 
the sides of the houses, flowers closed (Hibiscus Africanus as early as five 
minutes past two); at 2:52 cocks began to crow (ceasing at 2:57 and recom- 
mencing at 3:05). As darkness came on, many butterflies which were seen 
about flew as if drunk, and at last disappeared; the air became very humid, 
so much so that the grass felt to one of the observers as though recently 
rained upon.” 

Father Secchi, the well-known astronomer of Rome, observed the eclipse 
from the summit of Mount St. Michael, in the desert of Palmas, in Spain, but 
did not see the phenomena of Baily’s beads. He describes the corona, during 
the whole time of the total eclipse, as magnificent, but most brilliant on the 
side on which the eclipse began. Its light was uniformly of a beautiful 
silvery white, shading off gradually from the margin of the moon to the 
distance of about half its diameter. From this distance sheets of light shot 
off in certain directions, some of them as long as a diameter and a quarter 


392 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


of the moon. He noticed red protuberances while the sun was disappearing 
behind the moon, and also just before it emerged. At this time he saw a 
very large number of them, and above all a red cloud, entirely detached, 
separated from the rest and from the lunar margin by a distinctly marked 
white space. Its figure was elongated; it was twisted and sharp at the 
extremities, and about thirty seconds in length by three in breadth. There 
were many smaller ones. In regard to these phenomena, he uses the follow- 
ing language: — 

“My convictions upon the nature of that which I saw are that the phenom- 
ena were real, and that I truly saw the flames in the solar atmosphere, and 
clouds suspended in these flames; it would be impossible to imagine any- 
thing else, as, for example, that it might be some phenomena of diffraction 
or refraction. The clear graduation and distinct mingling of the peach- 
blossom colored light with the white photosphere was of a character so 
distinct that it can never be mistaken for any phenomena of interference, of 
refraction, or any illusion whatever. Ido not doubt that it really appertains 
to the sun, and the structure of these suspended clouds tends to strengthen 
my conviction.” 

M. Petit, Director of the Observatory at Toulouse, graphically describes 
the red protuberances as follows: — 

““T have measured the incandescent emanations, whose dimensions on this 
occasion were enormous, and whose form has proved to me, in the most 
conclusive manner, that they are immense clouds floating in the vast atmos- 
phere of the sun. Two of them were as much as sixty thousand miles in 
thickness, and two hundred and forty thousand miles in length! Of these two 
a considerable part was separated from the solar disk by an extent of at least 
eighteen thousand miles —a circumstance which proves, beyond all doubt, 
that they are not mountains in the sun, as has been surmised. Their dimen- 
sions diminished from the side toward which the moon moved. I was able, 
during the brief duration of the phenomenon, to follow and measure the 
variation of these dimensions, and the result, as before, goes to prove that 
these peaks belong to the sun. Especially was I able, filled with a profound 
feeling of wonder and awe, to measure the height of the solar atmosphcre, 
which, in its least dense and most irregular portion, extends to forty-five 
minutes of a degree, that is, at least one million five hundred thousand miles 
above the photosphere of the sun.” 

M. De La Rue, who was attached to the suite of Professor Airy, the 
Astronomer Roval of England, thus describes the phenomena of the eclipse 
as observed by his party: — 

“‘Some minutes before the totality I distinctly saw the whole of the lunar 
disk, and a luminous prominence on the east of the zenith. This was quite 
visible, while the sun’s image was reflected by a glass surface fixed at an 
angle of 45°, in the eye-piece, and the intensity of its light, consequently, 
much diminished. The upper surface of the glass diagonal reflector I had, 
however, silvered to the extent of one-half, and, as I brought into action the 
silvered half just previous to totality, I.perceived a large sheet of promi- 
nenccs on the east. A little to the east of the zenith a brilliant cloud, quite 
detached from the sun, and at some distance from the moon, came into 
view. 

“The brilliancy of these prominences was wonderfully great, and far 
exceeded that of the corona. They were not uniform in tint, and, to my 
eye, they did not in general present a red or rose color; two, however, had a 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 393 


decided but faint rose tint. Much detail was visible in the protuberances, 
both of light, shade, color, and configuration. The side towards the sun 
was not brighter than the opposite side; but in some cases the more distant 
portions of the protuberances were fainter than the near portions. It is not 
improbable, therefore, that they consist of gaseous matter in an intense 
state of incandescence. The surface of some of the eastern luminous 
prominences next to the moon was, when first seen, very irregular, and far 
more so than was attributable to mountains as seen in profile on the moon’s 
edge. This irregular outline may, however, be explained by supposing 
these prominences to have been first seen floating, like clouds in a transpar- 
ent.atmosphere, at some little distance from the sun’s surface, and, conse- 
‘quently, from the moon’s edge —a supposition which is supported by the 
fact that one such prominence or luminous cloud was seen distinctly de- 
tached, and at some distance from the dark moon. As the moon glided 
over the sun’s disk, the inner outline of the prominences in the eastern hem- 
isphere became less and less indented, and at last they were bounded by the 
nearly even outline of the moon’s limb. As the eastern prominences became 
gradually covered, a mountain-like peak, seen at first as a mere point in the 
northwest quadrant, gradually grew in dimensions, then presented several 
points, and at last resembled somewhat a colossal ship in full sail; and, ex- 
tending from this through an arc of 60°, there came into view in the north- 
west quadrant a long streak of luminous prominences, varying in breadth, 
and with a few points projecting outwards. This streak became very jagged 
in its inner outline as the moon glided off from it, just previous to the sun’s 
reippearance, when these luminous prominences presented the same phe- 
nomena as those on the eastern edge; that is, they appeared like clouds 
floating in a transparent atmosphere, a. little distance from the sun. 

“As the prominences which we see beyond the sun’s limb on the occasion 
of a total eclipse are merely such as are, from their situation, seen in profile, 
it is fair to presume that such prominences must exist pretty generally dif- 
fused all over the sun’s photosphere, and that they must be at all times visi- 
ble either as light or as dark markings on the sun’s disk. Whether they are 
the bright portions or faculz, or the darker portions (not the spots) of the 
sun’s mottled disk, or whether they may not in some cases appear more 
bright, and in others less bright, than the general brightness of the sun’s 
disk, must still be a matter of conjecture. It is an interesting fact, however, 
that on the nineteenth and twentieth a large mass of faculz, surrounding a 
group of small spots, came round into view by the sun’s rotation, which must 
have occupied very nearly the position of the brightest portion of a large 
streak of prominences on the southeastern quadrant. The prominences 
in some cases did not project beyond the moon’s limb to a greater extent 
than the thinnest line, but in others the prominence reached a distance of two 
minutes. The detached cloud before mentioned, when first seen, was about 
half a minute (14,000 miles) beyond the position occupied by the moon’s 
dark limb. It presented a double curvature on its northern side, both curva- 
tures being convex towards the north. It inclined, in a curved direction, at 
about an angle of 60° from a radius towards the east, and was a minute and 
a half (42,000 miles) long. As the moon glided onwards in her course, she 
approached it gradually, and at last touched the extreme point of this float- 
ing cloud, which glowed with all the brilliancy of one of our own terrestrial 
clouds at sunset. It presented a decided rose tint. At 72° from the north a 
protuberance, in shape reminding one of a boomerang, imprinted itself on 


394 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


a collodionized plate, although it was not visible to me in the telescope. 
The stem was two minutes long (56,000 miles); the point was bent towards 
the north, inclining downwards over towards the extremity of the detached 
cloud. It is a very curious circumstance that this protuberance imprinted 
itself distinctly, although it did not attract the eye directed especially to that 
locality. This may be accounted for on the supposition that it emitted a 
feeble purple light. 

“My own observations, and those of others, furnish an additional proof 
that the luminous prominences belong to the sun, and not to the moon; 
and this is placed beyond doubt by two photographs I obtained, at two dif- 
ferent periods, during the totality. They show that the prominences retained 
a fixed position in regard to the sun, and that, as successive portions of the 
moon passed before them, they did not change either their form or appear- 
ance, except in so far that the moon, by passing over them, shut off one 
portion after another towards the east, while more was visible of those pro- 
tuberances on the west; and fresh protuberances came into view, and were 
depicted in the second photograph. A more important inference, leading to 
the same physical conclusion, is, that the moon’s disk distinctly slid between 
the upper and the lower prominences, by a quantity measurable on the pho- 
tographs. This is confirmed by the Astronomer Royal’s measures of angu- 
lar position of the prominences. 

“‘ Just before and after the eclipse, sun-pictures were made; and during: the 
progress of the eclipse thirty-one photographs were obtained, the times of 
which are carefully registered. These will serve hereafter to determine the 
path of the moon across the sun’s disk, and other data, with considerable 
accuracy. The serrated edge of the moon is perfectly depicted in all the 
photographs, and in some of them one cusp of the sun may be seen blunted 
by the projections of a lunar mountain, while the other remains perfectly 
sharp. The indentations of the concave side of the luminous prominences, 
as seen in the photographs at the period of totality, are far greater than the 
well-marked profiles of the lunar mountains shown in the photographs of 
the other places of the eclipse. The surface of the sun, just bordering the 
moon’s dark disk, is brighter for a short distance than the other portions, — 
a phenomenon deserving of attention. 

“With the Kew Photo-heliograph the moon does not give the slightest 
trace of a picture with an exposure of one minute; the pictures of the 
luminous prominences, which were procured in the same time, are over- 
exposed, and the corona has clearly depicted itself on both the plates; the 
light of the corona is therefore more brilliant than that of the moon.” 

M. LeVerrier observed the eclipse at Tarragona, in Spain, assisted by MM. 
Chacornae and Yvon Villarceau. In his official report to the French goy- 
ernment, he says: “‘ The first object I saw after the commencement of total- 
ity was an isolated cloud separated from the moon’s border by a space equal 
to its own breadth, the whole about a minute and a half high by double that 
length. Its color was a beautiful rose, mixed with shades of violet, and its 
transparency seemed to increase even to brilliant white in some parts. A 
little below, on the right, two clouds lay superimposed on each other, the 
smaller above, and the two of very unequal brilliancy. The rest of the west- 
ern edge of the disk, and the lower part, showed nothing more than the 
corona, the light of which was perfectly white and of the greatest brilliancy. 
But, thirty degrees below the horizontal diameter on the east, I discovered 
two lofty and adjoining peaks, the upper sides both tinted with rosy and 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 396 


violet light, while the lower sides were brilliant white. I do not doubt that 
the toothed form I assign to these peaks is real, which, as it contrasted with 
that of the first appendages I have described, I verified with great care; 
moreover, in shifting the telescope, whose high power permitted a sight of 
only a small part of the solar disk at one time, I saw a third peak, a little 
higher, also tooth-formed, and resembling the two others in color and form, 
differing only in its larger dimensions. The remainder of the disk offered 
nothing remarkable. 

“The visible part of the emergent sun, over its whole breadth and up to 
the height of seven or eight seconds, was covered by a bed of rosy clouds, 
which appeared to gain in thickness as they emerged from behind the disk of 
the moon.” 

The conclusion arrived at by LeVerrier respecting these rosy appendages 
is, that they do not, as has been supposed by some, belong to the moon, or 
to the earth’s atmosphere, but to the sun, and that they should hereafter be 
designated as “solar clouds;”” and, making an application of his conclusion, 
he adds: “‘A reconstruction, or even a complete abandonment, of the theory 
hitherto prevalent as to the physical constitution of the sun appears to me 
essential. It must give place toone far more simple. We. have been hitherto 
assured that the sun was composed of a central dark globe; that above this 
globe existed an immense atmosphere of sombre clouds; -still higher was 
placed the photosphere, a self-luminous, gaseous envelope, and the source 
of the light and heat of the sun. Where the clouds of the photosphere are 
rent, says the old theory, the dark body of the sun is seen in the spots which 
so frequently appear. To this complex constitution must be added a third 
envelope, formed of the accumulation of roseate clouds. Now, I fear that 
the greater part of these envelopes are only fictions; that the sun is a body 
luminous simply because of its high temperature, and covered by an unbroken 
layer of roseate matter, whose existence is now proved. This luminary, thus 
formed of a central nucleus, liquid or solid, and covered by an atmosphere, 
falls within the law common to the constituiion of celestial bodies.” 

This opinion of LeVerrier is not, however, likely to be acquiesced in by all 
astronomers; and M. Faye, in presenting to the French Academy a long let- 
ter from Baron Feilitzsch with an account of his observations (also in Spain), 
declares it to be his opinion, as well as that of Baron F., that the eclipse of 
1860 furnishes the most decisive evidence in favor of the opinion which 
refers the corona and the luminous clouds to simple optical appearances, and 
not to the essential constitution of the sun or of his atmosphere. M. Faye 
adds, that the opinion appears to be confirmed by a comparison of the results 
of other observers, — that the sun has no atmosphere, and that the appear- 
ances recorded are purely optical. 

M. Praznowski, who observed the eclipse at Briviesca, in Spain, with special 
reference to the polarization of light, comes to the following conclusions : — 

(1.) The light of the red protuberances is not polarized. In this respect 
they resemble clouds in our atmosphere. May we hence conclude that these 
are solar clouds, composed of particles, not gaseous, but liquid, or even solid ? 
The high temperature of the sun leads us to infer that these clouds are con- 
stituted of very refractory matter. 

(2.) The polarization of the corona proves that its light emanated utd the 
sun, and was reflected. The bright, very decided, polarization, proves also 
that the gaseous particles from which it was reflected send the light to us 
reflected nearly at the maximum angle of polarization. For a gas this 


396 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


angle is forty-five degrees; but in order to reflect light at this angle it must 
be near the sun. A solar atmosphere seems to furnish the necessary con- 
ditions. 

In connection with the eclipse, some curious solar phenomena remarked in 
Brazil by M. Liais, who has been engaged there for some time in various 
scientific researches, may be of interest. On the 11th of April, 1860, about 
noon, the brightness of the sun was suddenly diminished so much that it 
might be looked at without pain to the eye, although the sky was remarkably 
clear and fine. At the same time several persons saw distinctly, with the 
naked eye, a star close to the sun, which, from its position, must have been 
the planet Venus. It was afterwards calculated that the brillianecy of Venus 
on that day was only three-fifths of that which would make it as distinct 
under ordinary circumstances, —a fact which proves that the obscuration of 
the sun was not due to atmospheric causes. Had the state of the atmosphere 
produced that effect, it would, of course, have rendered the planet still more 
invisible. This phenomenon is, therefore, considered by M. Liais as similar 
to those which are stated to have occurred in 1106, 1208, 1547, and 1706, and 
which have been attributed to the passage of cosmical clouds of asteroids 
across the sun’s disk. 


METEORIC PHENOMENA OF 1860. 


Meteor of July 20th, 1860.— On the evening of July 20th, 1860, one of the 
most remarkable meteors on record appeared over a portion of the earth’s 
surface at least a thousand miles in length (from N. N. W. to 8.8. E.) by 
seven or eight hundred miles in width, or from Lake Michigan to the Gulf 
Stream, and from Maine to Virginia. The following approximative results 
respecting the direction of the path of the meteor, its height above the earth, 
etc., have been deduced by Mr. C. 8S. Lyman, of New Haven, Conn., from a 
comparison of some of the most reliable of the observations which were 
made upon it: — 

1. The vertical plane in which the meteor moved cuts the earth’s surface 
in a line crossing the northern part of Lake Michigan, passing through, or 
very near to, Goderich, on Lake Huron, C. W., Buffalo, Elmira, and Sing 
Sing, N. Y., Greenwich, Conn., and in the same direction across Long Island 
into the Atlantic. 

2. In this plane the path that best satisfies the observation is sensibly a 
straight line approaching nearest to the earth (forty-one miles) at a point 
about south of Rhode Island, and having an elevation of forty-two miles 
above Long Island Sound, of forty-four over the Hudson, fifty-one at Elmira, 
sixty-two at Buffalo, eighty-five over Lake Huron, and one hundred and 
twenty over Lake Michigan. The western observations, however, which are 
few and imperfect, seem to indicate a somewhat greater elevation than this 
for the western part of the path. Possibly, therefore, its true form may have 
been a curve, convex towards the earth, resulting from the increasing resist- 
ance of the atmosphere as the meteor descended into denser portions of it. 
The observations made this side of Buffalo, which are somewhat numerous, 
and many of them good, are very well satisfied by the straight path already 
described. Further and more accurate observations beyond Buffalo are 
greatly needed for determining the true form and position of the orbit, both 
in respect to the earth’s surface and in space. 

3. The close approximation to pavallelism to the earth’s surface of the 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 397 


eastern portion of the observed path leaves it a matter of doubt, considering 
the imperfection of the observations, whether the meteor finally passed out 
of the atmosphere and went on its way in a disturbed orbit, or descended 
gradually into the Atlantic. The former supposition is, perhaps, the more 
probable, especially if the path was curved, as above suggested, instead of a 
straight line. 

4. The meteor exhibited different appearances in different parts of its 
course. It seems to have been observed first as a single body, more or less 
elongated, gradually increasing in brilliancy, throwing off occasionally sparks 
and flakes of light, until it reached the neighborhood of Elmira, N. Y. 
Here something of an explosion occurred, and the meteor separated into 
two principal portions, with many subordinate fragments, all continuing on 
their course in a line behind each other, and still scattering luminous sparks 
along their track, until a point was reached about south of Nantucket, where 
a second considerable explosion took place, and afterwards the principal 
fragments passed on till lost to view in the distance. [The distance out at 
sea at which it was seen is reported at between three and four hundred 
miles. — Editor.| The most trustworthy observations represent the meteor as 
disappearing while yet several degrees above the horizon (generally from 
three to six or eight degrees). 

5. It is not easy, from the observations on hand, to determine with much 
accuracy the velocity of the meteor while passing through our atmosphere. 
A comparison of the most probabie estimates of time with the length of the 
path observed gives a velocity ranging from eight to fifteen miles a second. 
Probably twelve or thirteen miles is a tolerable approximation. This, allow- 
ing for the earth’s motion in its orbit, gives twenty-six or twenty-seven miles 
a second as the actual velocity of the meteor in space. Its relative velocity 
may have been much greater when just eniering the atmosphere than after 
encountering its accumulated resistance. 

6. The actual diameter of the luminous mass, taking its apparent diame- 
ter as nearly equal to that of the moon (the estimate of many observers 
nearest its track), must have been from one-fifih to one-third of a mile. 
Many estimates would make it much larger. The two principal heads, 
when passing New Haven, must have been from one to three miles apart.— 
Silliman’s Journal. 

The evening on which this meteor appeared was oppressively warm and 
close, and great numbers of people were, consequently, out of doors or at 
windows, in situations favorable for witnessing the phenomenon. The 
meteor first attracted attention by its light, and, on looking up, the majority 
of observers saw two balls of flame coursing across the sky, from west to 
east, “like two chariots of fire urging their way in some mysterious race 
over the mighty course of the firmament.” The motion was majestic rather 
than rapid, and the apparent nearness of the flame to the earth caused many 
to suppose at first that it was merely a pyrotechnical display. 

The meteor was seen by a gentleman in Boston through a telescope of 
considerable power. The observer chanced at the moment to be looking at 
the planet Mars, and seeing the light of the meteor, he turned his telescope 
upon it, and followed its course until it passed out of sight. He made : 
sketch of its appearance, showing that the train of sparks which it left 
behind came from the front of the mass, where, from the compression of the 
air being greatest, the combustion was most intense. 

Professor G. P. Bond, ef the Cambridge Observatory, considers it probable 

St 


398 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


that this meteor did not fall to the earth, nor was it wholly consumed, but, 
continuing on its course, passed out of the limits of our atmosphere while 
over the Atlantic Ocean, and resumed its original character as a wanderer in 
the planetary spaces. 

Meteors of August 2d and 6th, 1860. — A meteor rivalling in brillianey that 
of July 20th was extensively observed throughout the southern United States 
on the evening of August 2d, between ten and eleven o’clock, local time. It 
appears to have passed from east to west, vertically, over Tennessee at ten 
minutes past ten, Knoxville time. “ From three to five minutes after the 
disappearance of the meteor, a report was heard, like the discharge of an 
eight-pounder, which was followed by a long rolling reverberatory sound 
of more than a minute’s duration.” 

Another brilliant meteor was seen in the southwest, from New Haven and 
New York, between half-past seven and eight o’clock, on the evening of 
August 6th. It passed from south to north, and, notwithstanding the day- 
light still remaining, attracted attention over a wide extent of country. 

Fall of Meteoric Stones at New Concord, Ohio.1— About one o’clock, on the 
first day of May, 1860, the people of Southeastern Ohio and Northwestern 
Virginia were startled by a loud noise, which was variously attributed to the 
firing of heavy cannon, to the explosion of steam-boilers, and to an earth- 
quake. In many cases houses were jarred. The area over which this explo- 
sion was heard was probably not less than one hundred and fifty miles in 
diameter. The central point from which the sound emanated appears to 
have been near the southern part of Noble County, Ohio. At New Concord, 
Muskingum County, Ohio, there was first heard in the sky, a little south- 
east of the zenith, a loud detonation, which was compared to that of acannon 
fired at the distance of half a mile. After an interval of ten seconds, another 
similar report; after two or three seconds, another; and so on, with diminish- 
ing intervals. Twenty-three distinct detonations were heard, after which the 
sounds became blended together, and were compared to the rattling fire of 
an awkward squad of soldiers, and by others to the roar of a railway train. 
These sounds, with their reverberations, are thought to have continued for 
two minutes. The last sounds seemed to come from a point in the southeast 
forty-five degrees below the zenith. The result of this cannonading was the 
falling of a large number of stony meteorites upon an area of about ten 
miles long by three wide. The sky was cloudy, but some of the stones were 
seen first as “‘ black specks,” then as “ black birds,’’ and finally falling to 
the ground. A few were picked up within twenty or thirty minutes. The 
warmest was no warmer than if it had lain on the ground exposed to the 
sun’s rays. They penetrated the earth from two to three feet. The largest 
stone, which weighed one hundred and three pounds, struck the earth at the 
foot of a large oak tree, and after cutting off two roots, one five inches in 
diameter, and grazing a third root, it descended two feet ten inches into hard 
clay. This stone was found resting under a root which was not cut off, and 
is now in the cabinet of Marietta College. About thirty other stones were 
found, one of which had a weight of fifty-three pounds, and another of 
thirty-six and a half; and the entire weight of all the fragments discovered 
is estimated at about seven hundred pounds. All the stones have the same 
general appearance. They are irregular blocks, and are covered with the 


1 From an account communicated by Prof. E. W. Evansto Sil/liman’s Journal, 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 399 


peculiar black meteoric crust. Internally they are of a bluish-gray color, 
and show numerous brilliant points of nickeliferous iron. 

Professor C. U. Shepard thus reports on the composition of the large 
fifty-three-pound specimen: In its internal aspect it approaches the stone 
of Jekaterinoslaw, Russia (1825), though it is somewhat firmer and more 
compact. In crust the two are identical. It is also similar to the stone of 
Slobodka, Russia (August 10, 1808), and compares closely with those of 
Politz (October 13, 1819), of Nanjemoy, Maryland (February 10, 1828), and 
of Kuleschowka, Russia (March 12, 1811); but the crust is less smooth on 
the Ohio stone than in that of the latter. A pearl-gray peridot forms the 
chief constituent (above two-thirds) of the stone. This mineral is often 
rolled up into obscurely-formed globules, which are so firmly imbedded in 
the more massive portions of the same mineral as to be broken across on 
the fracture of the stone, which therefore presents a sub-pisiform appear- 
ance. Snow-white particles of Chladnite are thickly scattered in mere specks 
through the mass, and closely incorporated with the peridot. The nickelic 
iron, of a bright white color, is also everywhere thickly interspersed in little 
points. Pyrrhotine is less conspicuous, though often visible in rather broad 
patches; while black grains of chromite are easily distinguishable by the 
aid of a glass, and sometimes with the naked eye. 

According to Professor Evans, of Marietta, Ohio, the results of the various 
observations give to the meteor a height of forty-one miles over the northern 
boundary ot Noble County, a diameter of three-eighths of a mile, and a 
relative velocity of nearly four miles a second. 

It was seen, through openings in the clouds, at various points along a line 
of sixty miles, extending from near Newport on the Ohio River to the neigh- 
borhood of New Concord. The evidence, upon the whole, does not indicate 
any descent of the body towards the earth between these limits, or any 
change in its size or appearance. From this fact, and the great height of 
the body, and the absence of all evidence that it was seen or heard in the 
northern part of the state or beyond, it seems probable that this meteor was 
not dissipated in the atmosphere, but passed out of it again. The shower of 
stones which came down near New Concord had probably been detached 
from the principal mass before the latter came into sight. 

Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, of Louisville, Ky., after an examination of all the 
facts connected with this phenomenon, writes to Silliman’s Journal that he 
is of the opinion that no fall of meteoric stones before recorded possesses so 
many points of interest as the one in question—surpassing even the far- 
famed fall at L’Aigle, in France. 

Meteor of August 11, 1560. — During the past year the only fragment of the 
great meteor which exploded and was seen over a large district of New Ene- 
land and New York on the 11th of August, 1850,! has been examined by 
Professor Shepard, who reports respecting it, in Sildiman’s Journal, as follows: 
The crust of the stone found at Bethlehem (Albany County, N. Y.) is very 
peculiar. It is double the thickness of any in my collection, equalling that 
of thick pasteboard. It is perfectly black, and very open in its texture. 
The outer surface is rough, being nowhere perfectly fused, but only semi- 
vitrified. Without being fragile or carbonaceous, it nevertheless resembles 
in color, lustre, and porousness, certain surfaces of mineral charcoal. The 


1 See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1860, pp. 415-17. 


400 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


interior of the stone is equally peculiar, being loosely granular, the particles 
uniform in character, small, highly crystalline, and nearly transparent. They 
possess a brilliant lustre, being of a very light gray or greenish-white color. 
They resemble volcanic peridot more than any species of the augitic or feld- 
spar family. Nickelic iron, of a bright white color, in delicate filaments and 
semi-crystalline grains, is thickly diffused through the mass; and these 
grains, as well as those of the peridotic mineral, are flecked with brilliant 
points of pyrrhotine (FeS). The specific gravity is 3.56. In general color 
and effect to the eye it approaches nearest to the Klein-Wenden stone (Sep- 
tember 16, 1843); but it differs from this in being larger grained and looser 
in its texture. 

Meteorites of Harrison County, Indiana. — A remarkable fall of meteoric 
stones took place in Harrison County, Indiana, on the 28th of March, 1859, 
which is thus reported on, in Silliman’s Journal, by Professor J. Lawrence 
Smith, who visited the locality and personally investigated the facts con- 
nected with the occurrence. The time at which it occurred (four o’clock 
in the afternoon) rendered the phenomenon of ready observation. The area 
of observation was about four miles square, and wherever persons were 
about in that area the stones were heard hissing in the air, and then striking 
on the ground or among the trees. Hardly a single person in the immediate 
vicinity of the occurrence saw any flash or blaze, as was noticed by all who 
heard the report from a distance. Three or four loud reports, like the burst- 
ing of bombshells, were the first intimations of anything unusual. A num- 
ber of smaller reports followed, resembling the bursting of stones in a lime- 
kiln. The stones were seen to fall after the first four loud explosions. 
Those who happened to be in the woods or near them heard the stones dis- 
tinctly striking amongst the trees. In some places the noise of the falling 
stones in the woods alarmed the cattle and horses in the vicinity, so that 
they fled in terror. A peculiar hissing noise, during the fall of the stones, 
was clearly heard for miles around. A very intelligent lady described it 
as very much like the sound produced by pouring water upon hot stones. 
The air seemed as if all at once it had become filled with thousands of ser- 
pents. 

Four specimens of this meteoric fall were found, the largest of which — 
weighing nineteen ounces —fell in the streets of Buena Vista, Ind., and 
buried itself in hard gravel to the depth of four or five inches. They are all 
covered by a very black vitrified surface, and when broken show the usual 
gray color of stony meteorites, interspersed with bright metallic particles. 
A chemical analysis of these fragments gave the usual meteoric constituents, 
viz., nickeliferous iron, phosphuret of iron and nickel, sulphuret of iron, 
Olivine, pyroxene,.and albite, with traces of cobalt and copper. 

Shooting Stars of August 9-10, 1860.— Since the year 1837, at least, it has 
been found in the northern hemisphere, whenever the weather has permitted 
observation, that shooting stars have been unusually abundant during a 
period of several nights in August, gradually increasing in numbers for a 
few days up to the tenth of the month, and then gradually diminishing in 
frequency. While every other meteoric period has intermitted, this of 
August holds out with little change. Observations during the past year 
indicate no diminution of this phenomena, five hundred and sixty different 
shooting stars being recorded by a party of observers in New Haven, Ct., on 
the night of August 9th-10th. 

On the Luminosity of Meteors.—In an article on this subject, communi- 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 401 


cated to the Philosophical Magazine, April, 1860, by R. P. Gray, the author 
proposes to show that the luminosity of shooting stars cannot arise from 
their reflecting the solar light after emerging from the earth’s shadow; nor, 
on the other hand, their sudden disappearance arise from their plunging into 
that shadow. He enumerates the three current modes of accounting for the 
luminosity of meteors: first, the aforesaid supposition that they are them- 
selves opaque, but illuminated by solar radiation while exposed to it; sec- 
ondly, that they are self-luminous, an opinion which all have now nearly 
abandoned; thirdly, that they become incandescent upon plunging into the 
earth’s atmosphere, either by friction and the enormous condensation which 
their rapid flight causes, or by absorbing oxygen, and parts of their sub- 
stance thus becoming chemically changed, and thus exhibiting the usual 
phenomena of combustion. The author then notices Sir J. Lubbock’s paper 
in the Philosophical Magazine for February, 1848, and endeavors to show 
that ordinary shooting stars would be quite too far off for us to observe such 
small bodies at even the minimum distance at which, at certain times and 
places on the earth’s surface, we know they can be seen, if merely illumi- 
nated by solar light. 

M. Julias Schmidt, in a communication recently read before the Imperial 
Academy, Vienna, urges the importance of greater attention being paid to 
the tails or luminous trains of light left by luminous meteors in their track, 
sometimes remaining long after the meteors themselves have disappeared. 
He considers these observations important: first, as regards their own proper 
motion; secondly, the downward curvature sometimes exhibited by them, 
and the way in which they break up and disperse; and, thirdly, the means 
they may afford of ascertaining by parallax their height above the earth —a 
matter, too, of importance for determining at what height the atmosphere 
ceases to have any influence. He observes, that an illustration of these tails 
or trains may be obtained by throwing from you, quickly or slowly, a lighted 
lucifer match, when just about to cease to burn; you will perceive either a 
straight immovable line, or an undulating or a curling line, of whitish-gray 
smoke standing in the air, if the air be calm or not in motion. 


NEW THEORY OF THE FORMATION OF COMETS AND METEORITES. 


The following theory, advocating the identity of comets and meteors, has 
recently been advanced by Reichenbach, the well-known European scientist: 
“Most meteorites,” he says, ‘‘can be proved to be an aggregate of distinct 
particles, inclosed in a dark mass or stroma. Each particle is, as it were, an 
independent individual, and existed before the inclosing mass did — being 
an older meteorite inside of a younger, like a fossil shell in chalk. If we 
conceive a space as large as the comet’s tail originally filled with a gaseous 
substance, in which the atoms of these particles were suspended, and if we 
furthermore conceive a tendency in these atoms to precipitate and crystal- 
lize, it is clear that this process, going on at innumerable points at the same 
time, milliards of crystals will form, each not much larger than the origi- 
nal atoms, because the matter is taken up synchronously by all neigh- 
boring crystals. These crystals by friction and pressure form larger par- 
ticles, while the unequal distribution of the different elements and the action 
of their forces will produce at some points denser aggregations than at 
others, and from this results the phenomenon of one or more ‘heads,’ or 
unclei. The process of condensation may continue, and the nucleus, at the 

34* 


402 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


expense of the tail, may thus become enlarged and finally consolidated, as 
shown in the compact masses of the meteorites.” ‘‘ Thus is the comet the 
building material of the meteorite; but a meteorite is a small planet, the 
destination of which is to unite with a larger planet, to advance by one step 
the world’s process of increase. Thus do we proceed from atoms of matter, 
isolated in the universe, to smallest crystals, to the cometary tail, to the 
nucleus of the comet, to the meteorite, and to the planet upon which we 
walk.”’ 


ON THE CONDITION OF THE NUCLEUS OF A COMET, AND THE 
EVOLUTION FROM IT OF NEBULOUS MATTER. 


The following views respecting the constitution of comets are given by 
Professor W. A. Norton, in a paper published in Silliman’s Journal, Vol. 
xxvi:, No79:— 

In the first place, I conceive the telescopic nucleus of a large comet to consist 
of an atmosphere of aqueous vapor, or of a vaporous and gaseous atmos- 
phere combined, condensed upon an inner nucleus more or less covered with 
water, or water partly in the condition of ice. In the case of the telescopic 
comets this central mass is probably altogether wanting. The vaporous 
atmosphere of the nucleus experiences variations of electric excitement 
under the influence of the sun, after the same manner that the earth’s 
atmosphere is affected by the sun. That an electric influence is directly 
exercised by the sun upon the upper regions of the earth’s atmosphere, or 
the photosphere of the earth, appears to me to have been fully established. 
When repeated electric discharges take place in the higher and rarefied 
regions of the atmosphere of the comet, or of that of the earth, they must 
have the effect, according to the results of the recent experiments of M. 
Pliicker, to arrange the vaporous matter in columnar masses, coinciding in 
direction with the lines of magnetic force. We thus have auroral columns 
in the comet’s as in the earth’s atmosphere. At the magnetic poles of the 
nucleus these would have a vertical position; and from these points would 
gradually decline from this position, until at the equator they would lie 
parallel to the surface. Now, as a comet recedes from the sun its tempera- 
ture falls, the suspended aqueous vapor begins to condense at certain depths 
in its atmosphere; the electricity thus set free flows in a series of electric 
discharges, which follow the course of the auroral columns as soon as they are 
established. Condensations extending through a considerable vertical depth 
in the upper atmosphere would also be attended with electric discharges 
from the one elevation to the other. It is these electric discharges along 
these auroral columns that, as I conceive, disengage the particles of aqueous 
vapor, or nebulous matter so called, and impel them off with a certain veloc- 
ity. The same discharges bring the expelled particles into a condition to be 
repelled by the nucleus. How this result may be produced, cannot here be 
adequately explained. As the temperature of the receding comet continues 
to fall, the process of condensation, and consequent evolution of aqueous 
vapor, goes on, and the visible nucleus increases in size. It would seem, 
from the observations of Mr. Bond on Donati’s comet, that large masses 
appeared to be disengaged at certain intervals. These phenomena may have 
arisen from the occasional suspension of the electric discharges taking place 
in the upper atmosphere. This would produce the appearance of the detach- 
ment and expulsion from the surface of the nucleus of a ring of nebulous 


lL 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 403 


matter. Luminous phenomena precisely similar to’ those here supposed 
take place in the upper atmosphere of the earth, to which we have given the 
name of Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis ; and probably from the same 
cause. They are almost uninterrupted at the pole during the long polar 
winter, and only at intervals display their coruscations in the skies of the 
temperate latitudes, where the changes of temperature are less, and the 
vaporous columns assume a more oblique position. On the other hand, 
while a comet is approaching the sun its temperature rises, and at the same 
time its atmospheric electricity increases; condensations of aqueous vapor 
and their attendant electric discharges are now much less frequent. It thus 
happens that the evolution of vaporous matter to form the head and tail is 
much less copious before than after the perihelion passage, and increases in 
quantity for a certain interval of time after it. While these auroral phe- 
nomena, as they may be styled, are thus subject to great fluctuations, and 
to sudden interruptions, and are most prevalent in the polar regions! of the 
nucleus, there would seem also to be an uninterrupted electric discharge from 
all points of the nucleus turned toward the sun, continually detaching parti- 
cles of aqueous vapor. This should be most abundant at the regions to 
which the sun is vertical, and where the electric excitement produced by it 
is the greatest, and may give rise to the hemispherical form of envelope. 

The phenomenon of separate concentric envelopes, or rings, often noticed, 
shows that the vaporous matter set free at any time is not all expelled to the 
same distance from the nucleus. This would be the case if we were looking 
down upon the polar regions of a comet whose axis was perpendicular to 
the plane of its orbit, and the matter was detached in zones from different 
latitudes. It would seem, also, that different intensities of electrical discharge 
should be attended with different velocities of projection. Upon the theo- 
retical views I have formed, these electric variations should also give rise to 
different intensities of repulsive action, as exerted by the nucleus. ; Again, if 
all the particles set free should not be of the same size, the smaller ones 
would experience the greater repulsive acceleration, provided the material 
repulsion is of the nature of an impulsive action against the surface of the 
particle. 

If the speculative notions just presented be correct, the question arises 
whether the earth may not be regarded, from our present point of view, as a 
comet; and if so, why do we not see its luminous train. The proper answer to 
this inquiry would seem to be, that the earth is actually, in a certain sense, a 
comet, and that itsJuminous train is seen by us in the zodiacal light. The 
nebulous earth-ring contended for by the Rev. Mr. Jones, in explanation of 
his admirable observations upon the zodiacal light, would seem then, in a 
modified sense, to have a real existence; instead of being in a condition of 
statical equilibrium, as supposed, it is in a dynamical condition of perpetual 
dispersion and renewal.2 

Nor is the expulsion of vaporous matter into the surrounding regions of 
space confined to the nuclei of comets and the earth. It occurs at the sur- 
face of the sun, and perhaps of all the heavenly bodies. It is beautifully 


1 Itis to be observed that the motion of the nucleus in its orbit occasions a vir- 
tual rotation around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the orbit, so far as 
exposure to the sun is concerned. 
2 The vaporous matter which is incessantly streaming off from the sun into remote 
space should enhance the brightness of the zodiacal light. 


404 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


seen as a solar phenomenon in a total eclipse of the sun, in the corona or 
halo that encircles the sun concealed behind the dark body of the moon, 
the aigrettes that stream out in various directions, and perhaps also the rose- 
colored flames that here and there project beyond the dim circular disk of 
the moon.! 

Professor Peirce’s Views on Comets. — The following statement of views on 
comets is reported to have been made by Professor Peirce, of Cambridge, to 
the French Academy; the results being predicated from observations on 
Donati’s comet of 1858:— 

The nucleus is of a metallic density, varying from three to twenty, if the 
density of water be taken as unity, and it is surrounded by an immense 
atmosphere. Under the influence of the sun’s heat, matter is given off from 
the nucleus, forming an envelope, which rises with uniform velocity. As it 
rises it becomes electric, like a cloud, and is repelled by the electricity of the 
sun; and when the solar influence becomes strong enough to overcome the 
natural cohesive force of the envelope, the latter separates from the comet 
and becomes the tail. The most electrified particles of the tail are those of 
the anterior surface; the other particles have much less electricity, the 
degree depending on their distance from this anterior surface. Prof. Peirce 
suggests the same explanation (viz., the electrical action) for some of the 
hitherto unexplained and apparently causeless movements of the heavenly 
bodies; among others, the erratic movements of Mercury, recently proved 
by LeVerrier. He states that the nucleus of Donati’s comet was less than 
one hundred and fifty miles in diameter, while the atmosphere had a diame- 
ter of forty thousand miles; that the envelope, in that case, rose from the 
nucleus at the rate of about thirty miles an hour; and that the strength 
of the electric influence of the sun was such as to destroy gravitation, and 
give a force repelling the tail from the sun equal to two and a half, if the 
attraction of gravitation be taken as unity. In that case, however, some of 
the particles of the tail were so feebly electrified that their repulsive force 
was overcome by the attraction of gravitation. 

Mr. Kemplay’s Theory of Comets.—The following theory, brought for- 
ward in England by Mr. Kemplay, has at least the merit of novelty. He 
supposes that a comet is ‘“‘a body of gaseous matter, homogeneous and indis- 
tinguishable in its parts, and nearly, but not perfectly, transparent.” The 
form which a body of this nature, moving, as comets do, round the sun ina 
‘very elliptical orbit, would assume under the combined influences of the 
internal attraction of its particles and the external attraction of the sun, 
would be that of a prolate spheroid, or oval, with its major axis in the direc- 


1 It would seem that even the visible nucleus of a comet is not in a truly stati- 
cal condition. It contracts and enlarges with the varying aistance from the 
sun. This may be a mere appearance, arising from the varying luminosity of the 
photosphere. It is also possible that the inner nucleus, with its atmosphere, may be 
surrounded by an ethereal atmosphere, which contracts and expands by reason of 
variations in an impulsive action of the sun, and in the density of the ether of 
space in the vicinity of the sun. These remarks may also apply to the entire en- 
velope of Encke’s comet, and the complete spherical envelopes sometimes noticed. 
Spherical envelopes, entirely surrounding the nucleus, would also be formed, if the 
cometic matter should be projected from all parts of the nucleus with the same 
velocity, but with a force insufficient to overcome the gravitating tendency. An 
apparent spherical continuation of an envelope behind the nucleus might, perhaps, 
result from the intersections of the orbits of the cometary particles urged past it 
into space by the repulsive force of the sun. 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 405 


tion of the line of external attraction. As the body approached the sun, its 
major axis would increase in iength, and it would become more prolate; and 
as it receded from the sun, the length of its major axis would diminish, and 
it wouid approach more nearly to the spherical form. It now remains to 
reconcile the appearances usually presented by comets with the form which, 
according to this view, they really possess. This Mr. Kemplay does by sup- 
posing that we never see the whole of a comet (the gaseous matter of which 
_it is composed not being luminous in itself), but only such portions of it as are 
illumined by the sun’s rays; the apparent form of the comet being determined 
by the refractive power of the matter of which it consists. The parallel rays 
of the sun, falling upon the convex surface of the comet, will converge into a 
focus, which will generally be within the spheroid, and will then diverge until 
they reach its further limits. If the mass of the comet be at all of a nebulous 
or misty character, the course of the refracted rays will be indicated by a lu- 
minous appearance; and the degree of brilliancy of any part (supposing the 
mass to be uniformly nebulous) will depend upon the number of rays passing 
through that part. The focus will be brightest, and this is the nucleus of 
the comet; the head, or nebulous envelope of the nucleus, is formed by the 
converging and diverging rays near the focus, and the tail by the continu- 
ation of the diverging rays when they are further dispersed, and shine, con- 
sequently, with a feebler lustre. 

Such is, briefly, Mr. Kemplay’s theory. According to it the tail of a comet 
ought always to extend in a straight line away from the sun, which is gener- 
ally, but not always, the case. It explains the fact that the tail is longest 
when the comet is nearest the sun. The spheroid becomes more prolate as 
it approaches nearer to the sun, so that the surface on which the rays fall 
becomes more convex as the comet approaches its perihelion; and the more 
convex the surface, the shorter the focus, and consequently the longer the 
diverging rays. As the comet recedes from the sun its surface becomes less 
convex, and the focus gradually longer, until at last it falls beyond the limits 
of the spheroid, and the comet is no longer visible. The sudden disappear- 
ance of Halley’s comet in 1836 may be accounted for in this way. The 
backward curvature of the tail, which is frequently observed when the comet 
is near its perihelion, is explained by the inclined position which the comet 

assumes at that period, owing to its parts which are farthest from the sun 
- (ihe tail) having to pass through a much larger space in the same time than 
the parts nearest the sun (the nucleus). The fact that the sides of the tail 
are more brilliant than the centre, Mr. Kemplay attributes to the convergence 
of more rays at the sides than in the centre, and illustrates his explanations 
by diagrams. The streaming light which occasionally shoots along the tail 
with inconceivable rapidity he accounts for by an undulation in the whole 
mass of the comet, producing an effect analogous to that observed in a field 
of corn when shaken by the wind. 

The above are the principal cometary phenomena of which Mr. Kemplay’s 
theory offers a consistent explanation. Those which are inconsistent with it 
are, principally, the occasional appearance of a shorter and wider tail, ex- 
tending on each side of the original tail, and varying in position; the occa- 
sional appearance of the tail at right angles to a line drawn from the sun; 
and the fact that, when stars are seen through comets, no refraction of their 
rays is observed. The first of these facts Mr. Kemplay can only account 
for by supposing that the particular comets in which it was observed were 
subjected at the time to some peculiar disturbing influence, which modified 


406 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


their prolate spheroid form. The last two he is inclined to attribute to im- 
perfect or prejudiced observation, observing that “in matters of scientific 
speculation the owner of a favorite theory is prone to take great liberties 
with things unknown.” 


ACCELERATION OF THE MOON’S MOTION. 


A curious controversy has lately arisen on the subject of the acceleration 
of the moon’s motion, which is now exciting great interest among mathe- 
maticians and physical astronomers. Professor Adams and M. Delaunay 
take one view of the question, MM. Plana, Pontécoulant, and Hansen, the 
other. Mr. Airy, Mr. Main, the President of the Astronomical Society, and 
Sir John Lubbock, support the conclusions at which Professor Adams has 
arrived. The question in dispute is strictly mathematical; and it is a very 
remarkable circumstance in the history of astronomy that such great names 
should be ranged on opposite sides, seeing that the point involved is really 
no other than whether certain analytical operations have been conducted on 
right principles; and it is a proof, therefore, if any were wanting, of the ex- 
traordinary complexity and difficulty of these transcendental inquiries. The 
nature and facts of the controversy are thus stated by Professor Airy, the 
Astronomer Royal of England, in a recent paper before the Astronomical 
Society : — 

It has been known from the time of Newton that the motions of the 
moon are disturbed by the attraction of the sun, and that a great part of the 
effect is of the following kind, viz., that when the moon is between the sun 
and the earth, the sun attracts the moon away from the earth; and when the 
earth is between the sun and the moon, the sun attracts the earth away from 
the moon; and thus, in both cases, it tends to separate the earth and the 
moon, or diminishes the attraction of the moon to the earth. There are 
sometimes effects of the opposite character; but, on the whole, that just 
described is predominant. If this dimunition were always the same in 
amount, the periodic time of the moon passing round the earth would always 
be the same. But it was found in the last century, by Halley and Dunthorne, 
that the periodic time is not always the same. In order to reconcile the 
eclipses of the moon recorded by Ptolemy with modern observations of the 
moon, it was necessary to suppose that in every successive century the moon 
moves a little quicker than in the preceding century, in a degree which is 
nearly represented by supposing that at each successive lunation the moon 
approaches nearer to the earth by one inch. The principal cause of this was 
discovered by Laplace. First, it had been shown by him and by others that 
the attractions of the other planets on the sun and on the earth do not alter 
the longer axis of the orbit which the earth describes round the sun, and do 
not alter the length of the year; but they diminish slowly but continually 
through many thousands of years the degree of ellipticity of the earth’s 
orbit. Now, when the earth is nearest to the sun, the decrement of attraction 
of the moon to the earth (mentioned above) is greatest; and when the earth 
is furthest from the sun, that decrement is least. It had been supposed that 
the fluctuations of magnitude exactly balance. But Laplace showed that 
they do not; he showed that the increased amount of decrement (when the 
earth is nearest the sun) overbalances the diminished amount (when the 
earth is furthest from the sun); and, therefore, that the less eccentric is the 
earth’s orbit the less does the increased amount of decrement at one part 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 407 


overbalance the diminished amount at another part, and the less is the total 
amount of the sun’s disturbing force. And as the sun’s disturbing force 
diminishes the moon’s attraction to the earth, that attraction is less and less 
impaired every century, or becomes practically stronger; every century the 
moon is pulled into a rather smaller orbit, and revolves in a rather shorter 
period. On computing the effect from this cause, it was found to agree well 
with the effect which Halley and Dunthorne had discovered in observations. 
The lunar tables thus amended, and with other but minor improvements, 
were applied to the computation of other ancient eclipses, which require far 
greater nicety than Ptolemy’s lunar eclipses, namely, total eclipses of the sun. 
The most remarkable of these were the eclipse of Thales (which occurred at 
a battle), that at Larissa, or Nimrwud (which led to the capture of that city by 
the Persians from the Medes), and that of Agathocles (upon a fleet at sea). 
They are all of great importance in settling the chronology. Dates were 
thus found for these several eclipses, which are most satisfactory. About 
this time Mr. Adams announced his discovery, that a part of the sun’s dis- 
turbing force had been omitted by Laplace. The sun pulls the moon in the 
direction in which she is going (so as to accelerate her) in some parts of her 
orbit, and in the opposite direction (so as to retard her) in other parts. La- 
place and others supposed that those accelerations and retardations exactly 
balance. Mr. Adams gave reason for supposing that they do not balance. 
In this he was subsequently supported by M. Delaunay, a very eminent 
French mathematician, who, making his calculations in a different way, 
arrived at the very same figures. But he is opposed by Baron Plana, by the 
Count de Pontécoulant, and by Professor Hansen, who all maintain that 
Laplace’s investigations are sensibly correct. And in this state the contro- 
versy stands at present. It is to be remarked, that observations can here 
give no assistance. The question is purely whether certain algebraical 
investigations are right or wrong. And it shows that what is commonly 
called ‘‘ mathematical evidence” is not so certain as many persons imagine, 
and that it ultimately depends on moral evidence. The effect of Mr. Adams’s 
alteration is to diminish Laplace’s change of the periodic time by more than 
one-third part. The computations of the ancient eclipses are very sensibly 
affected by this. At present we can hardly say how much they are affected; 
possibly those of Larissa and Agathocles would not be very much disturbed ; 
but it seems possible that the computed eclipse of Thaies might be thrown 
so near to sunset as to be inapplicable to elucidation of the historic account. 
This is the most perplexing eclipse, because it does not appear that any other 
eclipse can possibly apply to the same history. The interest of this subject, 
it thus appears, is not confined to technical astronomy, but extends to other 
matters of very wide range. And the general question of the theory of the 
moon’s acceleration may properly be indicated as the most important of the 
subjects of scientific controversy at the present time. 


ON THE SECULAR PERTURBATIONS OF FOUR OF THE ASTEROIDS. 


The following is a reported abstract of a paper on the above subject pre- 
sented to the American Association for the Promotion of Science by Mr. 8S. 
Newcomb, of Cambridge : — 

Dr. Olbers supposed that the numerous small planets circulating between 
Mars and Jupiter were the fragments of a large one which had been shat- 
tered through the agency of some unknown cause. If this hypothesis were 


408 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


true, the orbits during several hundred years would all pass very near the 
point where the explosion occurred, but after thirty thousand years the 
orbits would have changed so much that no trace of this intersection would 
be left. Consequently, if this explosion occurred at any time within the last 
three millions of years, the fact that the orbits do not now intersect is no 
argument against Olbers’ hypothesis. 

The best way to treat the problem was to make actual calculations as exact 
as possible of the positions of the orbits during all time. We can then easily 
see whether they could have ever intersected. These calculations were 
made by Mr. N. for the four asteroids, Vesta, Metis, Hygea and Parthenope. 

If the changes we now see going on in the orbits of the planets were 
to continue long enough, they would finally lead to the destruction of the 
solar system, by causing the earth and planets to fall into the sun. But 
mathematical investigations showed that these changes, after tens of thou- 
sands of years, will cease, and the orbits will begin to return to their present 
state, and will never do more than oscillate between narrow limits; these 
oscillations occupying from fifty thousand to half a million of years. They 
were illustrated by a chart exhibiting all the changes in the eccentricity of 
Vesta during the last five hundred thousand years. 

The next question was whether the orbits of. Vesta and Hygea could ever 
have intersected, and this was answered in the negative. The mean distance 
of Hygea is much greater than that of Vesta, and all but one of the terms in 
the rigorous expressions for the eccentricity are nearly the same for both 
planets. The consequence of this is that whenever the orbit of Vesta is 
elongated in a particular direction, that of Hygea will be elongated in the 
same direction, and will thus recede from it. Actual calculation showed 
that they could never have come within much less than thirteen millions of 
miles of each other. It does not, therefore, seem that Olbers’ hypothesis can 
be true, unless some force of which we have no knowledge has acted on these 
planets. 


DRY FOGS. 


These phenomena have been lately much discussed by the meteorologists 
of France. The Abbé Moigno states that these fogs are seen in Belgium and 
Holland from April to the beginning of June, when the wind is in the north- 
west, north, or northeast, after the sun has shone for several days. Their 
appearance coincides generally with a temperature above the mean, but not 
constantly. They disappear and return again, sometimes after eight days. 
They do not seem to extend to a great height in the atmosphere, and disap- 
pear when the wind becomes strong, or when the air is highly charged with 
humidity. M. Vercruysse, of Courtrai, considers the origin of these fogs 
may be found in the masses of vegetable matter which cover the shores of 
Holland and Beigium to a considerable depth. These masses engender 
grayish-blue vapors, through which the sun appears, especially in the even- 
ing, of a fiery hue, and which the north wind disperses to a great distance 
over the country. In 1783, a thick dry fog extended over a great part of 
Europe. It did not moisten the ground, and appeared like a thick smoke. 
The sun was so much obscured by it, especially in the morning, that at eight 
o’clock, when it had well risen, it had to be searched for. During the rest of 
the day the fog was more elevated. It remained immovable, in spite of the 
winds and storms which raged above it, and lasted a month, or from June 
20th to July 20th. For this phenomenon no satisfactory explanation has 
eyer been given. It was, however, referred by some to the great earthquakes 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 409 


which occurred in the early part of the same year in Calabria and Iceland. 
The harvests of the year did not in any way appear to be affected by it. 


DUST STORMS, AND THE “SIMOON” OF INDIA. 


At a recent meeting of the British Meteorological Society, Dr. H. Cook, in 
a paper on “ Dust Storms, Dust Columns, and the Simoon, or Poisonous 
Wind of India,” remarked that there are certain days in which, however 
hard and violently the wind may blow, little or no dust accompanies it; 
whilst at other times every little puff of air or current of wind raises up and 
carries with it clouds of dust; and at these times the individual particles of 
sand appear to be in such an electrified condition that they are even ready 
to repel each other, and are, consequently, disturbed from their position and 
carried up into the air with the slightest current. 

To so great an extent does this sometimes exist, that the atmosphere is 
positively filled with dust, and, when accompanied by a strong wind, noth- 
ing is visible at a few yards, and the sun at noonday is obscured. This con- 
dition of the atmosphere is evidently accumulative. It increases by degrees 
until the climax is reached, when, after a certain time, usually about twenty- 
four hours, the atmosphere is cleared and equanimity is restored. 

Dust columns appear under a similar condition of electrical disturbance or 
intensity. On calm, quiet days, when hardly a breath of air is stirring, and 
the sun pours down his heating rays with full force, little circular eddies are 
seen to arise in the atmosphere, near the surface of the ground. These 
increase in force and diameter, and usually remain stationary for some time, 
and then sweep away across the country at great speed ; and ultimately 
lose gradually their velocity, dissolve, and disappear. 

The author had seen, in the Valley of Murgochow, which is only a few 
miles across, and surrounded by high hills, on a day when not a breath of 
air stirred, twenty of these columns. These seldom changed their position, 
or but slowly moved across the level tract, and they never interfered with 
each other. 

The author then spoke of the simoon, — that deadly wind which occasion- 
ally visits the deserts of Cutchee and Upper Sind, — which is sudden, and 
singularly fatal in its occurrence, invisible, intangible, and mysterious. Its 
nature is alike unknown (as far as the author is aware) to the wild, untutored 
inhabitant of the country it frequents, as to the European man of science; 
its effects only are visible. Its presence is made known in the sudden 
extinction of life, whether animal or vegetable, over which its influence has 
extended. The author gives the results of his information respecting the 
simoon, as follows : — 

1. It is sudden in its attack. 2. It is sometimes preceded by a cold current 
of air. 3. It occurs in the hot months (usually June and July). 4. It takes 
place by night as well as by day. 5. Its course is straight and defined. 
6. Its passage leaves a narrow, “ knife-like” tract. 7. 1t burns up or destroys 
the vitality of animal and vegetable existence in its path. 8. It is attended 
by a well-marked sulphurous odor. 9. It is described as being like the blast 
of a furnace, and the current of air in which it passes is greatly heated. 10. It 
is not accompanied by dust, thunder, or lightning. 

The author concluded his paper by asking, If, then, it be neither a phase 
of sun-stroke, lightning, malaria, nor miasmata in a concentrated form, what 
is it, or to What is it to be referred? 

30 


410 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


TABLE OF GEOGRAPHICAL POSITIONS, DETERMINED FROM ASTRO- 
NOMICAL OBSERVATIONS, BY BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL J. D. 
GRAHAM, U. S. CORPS TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS, DURING THE 
YEARS 1857, 1858, AND 1859. 


Many of the tables of the latitudes and longitudes of places in the United 
States are made up by mixing, indiscriminately, the results announced by 
astronomers and geographers, with the imperfect ones which are derived from 
measurements, with the dividers, upon the most convenient maps within reach, 
without in any case giving credit or authorities. This is a great injustice to 
a class whose labors are prosecuted through many a sleepless night, often 
amidst severe exposures to the weather and climate incident to our vast exient 
of territory, solely in pursuit of those truths upon which its accurate gco- 
graphical delineation must depend. 

The accompanying table, therefore, of latitudes and longitudes of places in 
the West, derived from recent astronomical observations made by Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Graham, U. S. A., will, it is believed, from their undoubted 
accuracy, be regarded as a valuable contribution to American geographical 
statistics. — Ed. 


2.9 Longitude West of the 
5° ie é 
Sa eye North Meridian of Greenwich. 
E 2 Positions. State. Taninde. 

2 - In Arc. In Time. 


ee |e | ee 


1 |Albany (sometimes called New 
Ibany). The intersection O° IS MIN ®, © fo E.On ee 
of Maple and Main Sts., . Til. | 41 47 20.30 
Armstrong (Fort). On lower end 
of Rock Island, . . Ill. | 41 30 59.80 
Ashtabula. Centre of the North 
Public Square, or Park, . | Ohio.| 41 52 04.00) 
Camanche. Intersection of Main | 
and Maxan Streets, . . |Lowa.| 41 46 58.90) 90 15 06.60 
Camanche. Flag-staff on Chicago 
Street, about one hundred 
yards west of the shore of 
the Mississippi River, . . |Iowa.| 41 46 51.30) 90 15 11.10/6 01 00.74 
Chicago. Steeple of the Roman 
Catholic Church of The 
Holy Name, on Wolcott 
Street, between Huron and 
Superior Streets, . Ill. | 41 58 48.00 87 37 44.25 5 50 30.95 
Chicago. The dome of the City 
‘Hall or Court House, . . Ill. | 41 58 06.20) 87 37 57.75) 5 50 31.85 
Chicago. The new Iron Light 
ouse, erected by Lieut.- 
Colonel J. D. Graham, at 
the east end of the north 
harbor pier, first lighted 
June 29th, 1859. Til. | 41 58 24.90 
9 |Chicago. The ‘old Stone Light 
‘House on the south bank of 
Chicago river, near River 
Street, . oe Ill. | 41 53 2250 87 37 35.82,5 50 30.35 
10 |** City of Rock Island.” The cen- | 


oo fF ©; bv 


for) 


oo sl 


87 36 55.50) 5 50 27.70 


tre of Washington Square 
(called on some of the older ‘ 
maps ‘*t‘ Church Square’’), Ill. | 41 30 37.80 90 34 13.95, 6 02 16.93 
11 |*‘ City of Rock Islaud.”? Dome of 
the Court House on Orleans 
Street, between Elk ane 
Deer Streets, os : Til. | 41 30 33.70 90 34 38.85) 6 02 18.59 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 


411 


No. for 
reference, 


| 


-|Fulton. Intersection of the ‘mid- 


Positions, State. 


peat The new- Court 


Ho Ohio. 
Ohio. 


Cleveland, She Light. House on 


e hill, 
ievdinta. The Beacon Li ht at 
the Jakeward end of the 


U.S. harbor pier, . . . | Ohio. 


Columbus, the State Capital. The 


Dome of the Capitol, . . | Ohio. 


Davenport. The Court House, 

Dubuque. Centre of the city, as 
now built, 

Dunleith. The Passenger House 
of the northwestern termi- 
nus of the Illinois Central 


Rail Road,. . Til. 
Elyria. The Dome of the Court 
House, Ohio 


.|Erie. Steeple of the Court House, Penn. 


Krie. The Light House, . . 

Erie. The Beacon Light at the 
lakeward end of the U. S. 
West Pier, . 

Erie. Passenger House at the 
Depot of the Erie and Buf- 
falo Rail Road, 

Erie. Stone monument (placed 
by the late Professor An- 
drew Ellicott) at the west 
corner of Parade and Front 
Streets, inscribed, ‘1795, 
Lat. 42° 08/ 14/7. War. 0° 
43/ E.”, 


dles of Base and Cherry 
Streets, . . 

Fulton. The foot of Cherry Str eet, 
on the east bank of’ the Mis- 
sissippi River, . 

Lyons. Intersection of the mid- 
dles of Exchange and Third 


Til. 


Dr 


Streets, . Iowa. 
Lyons. The Turret of the ‘Female 
Institute, Iowa. 


Madison, the Capital of Wiscon- 
sin. The Dome of the State 
Capitol, Ab nae Sha cee re 

Marais des Osiers. The west end 
of the ferry, on the Albany 
and ‘‘ City of Rock Island ” 
Stage Road, 

Michigan City. 

ublic Square, . 

Michigan City. The Light House, 

Michigan City. Passenger House 
‘of the Michigan Central 
Rail Road Company’ ’s Sta- 
TOn;.! x: 

Michigan City. Intersection of 
Franklin and Michigan 
Streets (centres),.  . 

Milwaukee. Dome of the Court 


Wis. 


Ill. 


Ind. 
Ind. 


Centre : of the 


Ind. 


Ind. 


ouse Wis. 
Milwaukee. Steeple of the Roman 
Catholie Church on Jackson 


Street, Wis. 


Penn. 


42 


41 


41 


41 
41 


43 


41 


41 
41 


41 


41 
43 


43. 


North 
Latitude. 


43 


20.81 


03.00 


03.00 


15.00 
10.51 


30.80 


11.62 


Longitude West of the 
Meridian of Greenwich. 


In Are. 


° 


81 


81 


80 


90 


90 


90 


90 


08.33 
22.88 


18.91 


11.23} 


34.61 


86 


33.70 


/ 
42 


42 


00 
34 


39 


05 


05 


09 


10 


10 
11 


28 


14 


54 
54 


54 


54 
54 


54 


dA 
02.55 


81 42 28.05 


57.60 


04.35 
40.05 


56.55 


53.55 


48.90 
41.70 
12.25 


04.05 


18.15 


Da DO on 


Corer 


5 


5 


6 


6 


In Time. 


-m. 


26 
26 


20 


00 


00 


00 
00 


57 


00 


47 
47 


47 


47 
51 


51 


8. 
48.71 
49.87 


20.92 
389.97 
40.78 


42.57 
44.74 


82.82 


69.67 


37.33 
37.94 


7.55 


37.20 
37.47 


7-27 


412 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 


Longitude West of the 


a . North Meridian of Greenwich. 
Positions. State. Tatindet 


No. for 
reference. 


In Are. In Time. 


Milwaukee. The Light House, 
situated near the foot of 
Wisconsin Street, ‘on the LIN 12 
high bank of the lake shore, is. 24.00, 87 

38 Milwaukee. The Beacon Light at 

the east end of the north 
harbor pier, Wis. 37.00, 87 

39 New Buffalo. Intersection of the 
middles of Whittaker Ave- 
nue and Mechanics Streets, |Mich. 47.00) 86 

New Buffalo. The Light House, |Mich. 43.50 86 

Niles. Intersection of Main and | 
Fourth Streets, . . Mich. 54.00 86 

Niles. Steeple of Trinity Church 
(Episcopal), at the southeast 
corner of Broadway and 
Fourth Streets, . . Mich. 46.10) 86 

Niles. Foot of Main Street, on 
the east bank of St. Joseph 
River,  . . -|Mich. 54.00) 86 

Prairie du Chien. T elegraph office 
at the western terminus of 
the Milwaukee and Missis- 
sippi Rail Road, on the left, 
or east bank of the Missis- 
sippi River, . is. 00.15 

Racine. Dome of the Court 
House, Vis. 44.60 

Racine. The T ‘ower ‘of St. Luke’s 
Church (Episcopal), . is. 45.40 

Toledo. Intersection of Jefferson 
and Superior Streets (cen- 


TEES) PVs. Pet ee See ee. bx 01.57 
Toledo. The Rail Road Depot, 

Ticket office, . io. 47.04 83 
Waukegan. Dome of ‘the Court 

House, : Til. 43.70, 87 
Waukegan. “Intersection of Mad- 

ison Street with the shore 

of Lake Michigan,. . . Til. 44.20) 87 : 
|\Waukegan. The Light House, | Ill. 29.30; 87 56.55) 


oO 
=I 


The foregoing positions are all derived from astronomical observations, 
carefully made, with good instruments. 


The following additional positions are given as approximations, near 
enough for general geographical purposes, such as the projection of maps, 
etc. 

They are derived from measurements of courses and distances, — made 
on C. H. Stoddard’s map of Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, 
Illinois, published in 1857, — from our astronomical station in the centre of 
Washington Square, in the ‘‘ City of Rock Island,” Illinois. See No.10in 
the Table. a. 

The said map is, we believe, compiled from the United States public land 
surveys. 


ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 413 


Longitude West of the 


Positions approximately determined. : eae Meridian of Greenwich. 


In Arc. In Time. 


No. for 
reference, 


52 |Moline. The south end of the) 
bridge connecting with Oe LE, AN Oe Agee a ea 


Rock Island, : mS ie . | 41 380 387.00) 90 80 46.05) 6 02 


53 |** Rock Island City. » On Rock 
River,: . | 41 28 14.80) 90 85 02.55, 6 02 

54 |Rock River, at its mouth in the 
Mississippi River. Point of, 
reference: The west ex- 
tremity of the island in the 
mouth of Rock River, . Ill. | 41 29 01.80) 90 35 49.05) 6 02 

55 |Watertown. On the left shore of, 
the Mississippi River, . . | Ill. | 41 82 19.60/90 24 58.05 6 01 


30* 


OBELTO ART 


OF PERSONS EMINENT IN SCIENCE. 1860. 


Bevan, Dr. Edward, an English entomologist, best known for his studies on 
the bee. 

Boydell, James, inventor of Boydell’s steam-plough. 

Browne, Peter B.,a lawyer of Philadelphia, best known in science for his micro- 
scopical researches on hair. ‘ 

Brisbane, General Sir Thomas, an astronomer of repute; President of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh. 

Bunsen, Chevalier, of Prussia. 

Condie, J., of Scotland, inventor of the steam-hammer. 

Daussy, Pierre, an eminent French hydrographer. 

Dent, Frederic, an eminent clock-maker, of London. 

Dumeril, M., a French naturalist. 

Ellis, Robert Leslie, an eminent English mathematician. 

Espy, James P., the celebrated meteorologist. 

Goodyear, Charles, inventor of ‘‘ vulcanized India-rubber.” 

Grimm, William, the celebrated German philologist. 

Gmelin, Christian, a well-known German chemist and author. 

Hausmann, Jean F., an eminent European mineralogist. 

Holmes, Dr. William P., a well-known botanist and mineralogist, of Canada. 

LeConte, John, Vice President of the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia. 

Locke, Joseph, an eminent English engineer. 

Owen, David Dale, a well-known American geologist. 

Payer, Jean Baptiste, a French botanist. 

Poinsét, M., an eminent French mathematician. 

Powell, Baden, of Oxford, England. 

Retzius, Professor, a German archeologist. 

Robiquet, Edmond, Professor Physics L’ Ecole de Pharmacie, Paris. 

Roscher, Dr., an African explorer, murdered by the natives of the East Coast. 

Spence, William, an English entomologist. 

Symonds, Jelinger C., a well-known English educational reformer and scientific 
amateur. ; 

Todd, Dr., an eminent English physiologist. 

Webster, W. F., late Professor of Chemistry, Washington College, Pa. 

Wirtemberg, Paul, Duke of, an eminent naturalist. 

Wurdemann, Gustavus, a naturalist and physicist, long attached to the U. S 
Coast Survey. 


LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC., 


ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO SCIENCE, PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED 


STATES DURING THE YEAR 1860. 


AGassiz, L. Contributions to the Natural History of the United States. Vol. 5. 
Boston: Little & Brown. 

Anderson, Major Robert, U. S. A. Evolutions of Field-batteries of Artillery. 
Translated from the French, and arranged for the Army and Militia of the 
United States. Van Nostrand, publisher. 

Anthony, J.J. Descriptions of New Species of American Fluviatile Gasteropods. 
8vo. pamphlet. 

Barbee, Dr. W. J. The Physical and Moral Aspects of Geology. Philadelphia: 
Challen & Son. 

Bennet, J. Fundamental Ideas of Mechanics and poem Data. Translated 
from the French of Moreau. Appleton & Co., N.Y. 

Binney, W.G. Catalogue of the Terrestrial and Hares Gasteropods inhabiting 
North America. 8vo. pamphlet. Boston. 1860. 

Blake, W. P. and C.T. Jackson. The Gold Placers of the vicinity of Dahlonega, 
Ga. 

Brush, George J. Eighth Supplement to Dana’s Mineralogy. 8vo. tract. 

Buckland, F.T. Curiosities of Natural History. First and Second Series. New 
York: Rudd & Carleton. 

Chapman, Dr. A. W. Flora of the Southern States. New York: Ivison & 
Phinney. 

Cooke, Prof. J. L., Jr. Elements of Chemical Physics. 8yo.. pp. 739. Boston: 
Little & Brown. 

Coultas, Harland. What may be learned fromaTree. 8vo. pp. 190. D. Apple- 
ton & Co. 

Cowes, Samuel E.. Study of the Earth. 4to. pp. 98. 

Dawson,J. W. On Fossil Plants from the Devonian Rocks of Canada. 8vo. tract. 
ef On the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Nova Scotia. 8vo. tract. 

e On the Vegetable Structures in Coal. 8vo. tract. 

Day, Dr. George E. Chemistry in its relations to Physiology and Medicine. With 
numerous illustrations. New York: Balliére Brothers. 8vo. pp. 318. $5.00. 

Elderhorst, Dr. William. A Manual of Blow-pipe Analysis and Determinate Min- 
eralogy. 12mo. pp.176. Zell, publisher, Philadelphia. 

Eliot, Charles W. and F. H. Storer. On the Impurities in Commercial Zinc, with 
special reference to the Residue Insoluble in Dilute Acids, to Sulphur, and to 
Arsenic. 4to. pamphlet. 

Faraday, Michael. A Course of Six Lectures on the Various Forces of Matter, 
and their Relations to Each Other. With illustrations. New York: Harper & 
Brothers. 12mo. pp. 198. 

Ferrel, William. The Motions of Fluids and Solids relative to the Earth’s Surface; 
comprising Applications to the Winds and Currents of the Ocean. New York: 
Ivison & Phinney. 

French and Smith. New York State Gazetteer and Map (including a Geological 
and Meteorological Chart of the State of New York). Syracuse, N. Y. 


416 “LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. 


Garrat, Dr. Alfred C. Electro-Physiology and Electro-Therapeutics; showing the . 
Best Methods for the Medical Uses of Electricity. 8vo. pp. 708. 

Gesner, Abraham, M. D. A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and other Dis- 
tilled Oils. New York: Balliére Brothers. 8vo. pp. 134. 

Gibbon, Capt. John, U.S. A. The Artillerist Manual. Illustrated. 8vo. pp. 568. 

Gibbs, L. R. Rules for the Accentuation of Names in Natural History. 4to. 
pamphlet. 7 

Gibbs, L. R. Past and Present Condition of Niagara Falls. Pamphlet. 1860. 

Gosse, P. H. Romance of Natural History. With numerous illustrations. Bos- 
ton: Gould & Lincoln, 

Graham, Col. J. D.,U.S. A. On the Latitude and Longitude of Milwaukee, Prai- 
rie du Chien, Racine, and Madison, Wis. Pamphlet; from the 4th vol. of the 
Proc. Wisconsin Historical Society. 

Hall, T. J. Additions to the Flora of Wisconsin. 8vo. tract. 

Hayden, F. V. Geological SKetch of the Estuary, etc., of the Judith River; also, 
Extinct Vertebrata from Judith River and the great Lignite Formations of 
Nebraska, by Joseph Leidy. 4to. pamphlet. 

Hewson, W. Principles and Practice of Embanking Lands from River-floods, as 
applied to ‘‘ Levees” of the Mississippi. D. Van Nostrand. 

Hitchcock, Dr. Edward and Charles H. New Elementary Geology, for Schools, 
Academies, and the General Reader. With 300 illustrations. 1 vol. $1.25. 
Ivison & Phinney, N. Y. 

Hitchcock, Prof. E. Preliminary Report on the Geology of Vermont. 8vo. 
pamphlet. 

Hittell, John S. Odo-Magnetic Letters. By Baron Reichenbach. Translated from 
the German. Pamphlet. Blanchard, N. Y. 

Hoskins, Dr. T. H. An Account of the Most Common Adulterations of Food and 
Drink, with Simple Tests by which many of them may be detected. Boston: 
T. P. Burnham. 

Jervis, J. B. A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Railways. 12mo. 
pp. 341. New York: Phinney, Blakeman, and Mason. 

Kurtz, J. D. Catalogue of recent Marine Shells found on the Coasts of North and 
South Carolina. 8vo. tract. 

Lea, Isaac. Observations on the Genus Unio. Vol. 7. 4to. 1860. 

“* Observations on the Genus Unio, together with Descriptions of New Species, 
their Soft Parts, and Embryonic Forms, in the Family Unionidz. 25 plates. 
Philadelphia. Printed for the author. “ 

Leidy, Joseph, M. D. An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy. 8vo. pp. 
663. 393 engravings. Lippincott & Co., Philadephia. 

Lowell, John A. Review of Darwin on the Origin of Species. 8vo. pamphlet. 
Boston. 

Lewes, G. H. Studies in Animal Life. Harper & Brothers, N. Y. 

Maury, Capt. M. F.,U. S. N. Nautical Monographs; the Winds at Sea, their 
Mean Direction and Annual Average Duration from each of the Four Quar- 
ters. Washington Observatory. 4to. pp. 8. 

Marcou, Jules. The Geology of North America, with two Reports on the Prairies 
of Arkansas and Texas, the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, ete. With 
Maps and Plates. Boston: Little & Brown. $6.00. 

Morris, J. D. Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of North America. 8vo. pamphlet. 
Washington. 1860. 

Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology (including a Museum of Art, a 
Society of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science), proposed to be established 
in Boston. Pamphlet. 8vo. Boston. 

Olcutt, Henry S. Outlines of the First Course of Yale Agricultural Lectures. 
12mo. pp. 186. New York: Saxton & Co. 

Patent Office Annual Report. 1859. 

Peck, W.G. Introductory Course of Natural Philosophy. From the French of 
Ganot. New York: A. S. Barnes & Burr. 


LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. 417 


Plaget, H. F. The Watch: its Construction, its Merits, and its Defects; How to 
Choose it; How to Use it. New York. 1 vol. 

Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 13th 
meeting. 1859. 7 

Rogers, Prof. William B. Notes on the Aurora of the 28th of August, 1859, as 
observed at Lunenburg, Mass. 8vo. tract. 

Rood, Prof O. N. On the American Rifle. Pamphlet. 

Smithsonian Institution. Annual Report. 1859. 

Snell, Prof. E. S. An Introduction to Natural Philosophy (Olmsted’s College 
Philosophy revised). 1vol. 8vo. pp. 500. Collins & Co., N. Y. 

Suckley, Dr. G. Descriptions of Salmonidz from the Northwest Coast of North 
America. 8vo. pamphlet. 

Suckley, Dr. George and Dr. J. G. Cooper. The Natural History of Washington 
Territory and Oregon, with much relating to Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, 
Utah, and California. From the U. S. Reports of the Pacific R. R. Survey. 
58 plates. Balliére Brothers, N. Y. 

Tatnall, Edward. Catalogue of Phenogamous and Filicord Plants. 8yo. pamph- 
let. Wilmington, Del. 

Taylor, Alfred B. Report on Weights and Measures. Read before the Pharma- 
ceutical Association, at their Annual Meeting for 1859. Boston: Rand & Co. 
Pamphlet. 

Transactions of the New York State Medical Society, for 1860. Pub. Dot., con- 
taining Report of Committee on New York City Milk. By Dr. S. R. Perey. 
Tyndall, Prof. John. The Glaciers of the Alps. Illustrated. 12mo. pp. 450. 

Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 

Ward, Com., U.S. N. Steam for the Million. A Popular Treatise on Steam, and 
its Applications to the Useful Arts. Wan Nostrand, publisher. 

Ware, Dr. John. The Philosophy of Natural History. Prepared on the plan, and 
retaining portions of the work, of William Smellie. Boston: Brown & Tag- 
gard. 

Warren, S. Edward. General Problems from the Orthographic Projections of 
Descriptive Geometry, ete. John Wiley, N. Y. pp.412. 8vo. 

Wells, David A. Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1860. Boston: Gould & Lin- 
coln. 

Wetherell, Dr. C. M. The Manufacture of Vinegar; its Theory and Practice, with 
special reference to the Quick Process. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 


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PAGE 
Africa, native iron in, 
Agricultural implements, new, 
Agriculture in France, 
Alcohol, production of from beet- 
roots, 


“ production from sugar by 


electrical action, 252 
Alcoholic spirits, poisons found in, 254 
Alleghany range, measurements of, 276 
Alkaloid, new, 252 
Aluminum, leaf, 195 


American Association, fourteenth 
meeting, 

Ammonia, artificial production of 
from the atmosphere, 

Ancients, transportation and eleva- 
tion of large stones by, 

Angora goat in France, 

Animal kingdom, existence of series 


3 


177 
365 


in, 
Animals, domestication of foreign, 364 
ee parasitic, reproduction of, 357 
society tor the acclimatiza- 
tion of, 15 


Antarctic explorations, 10 
Archzology, some general views of, 320 
Arctic expeditions, recent, 
‘¢ flora, notes on the, 
Armstrong gun, how manufactured, 42 
“ 


_ 
wy) 


= 


307 | Beet-root alcohol, 253 
94 Bird, power of the song of a, 184 
16| Birds, fossil, from New Zealand, 313 

Bleaching action of sulphur, 214 


ce employment of carbonic 


acid in, 216 
Blindness, color, 139 

Boilers, steam, new method of testing 

| the strength of, 

| Bones, bird’s, fossil, from New Zea-. 
land, 13 

‘¢ fossil, from Connecticut River 
sandstones, 313 

Boracic acid, in the waters of the 
Pacific, 207 

et ‘6 new American min- 
eral containing, 304 
Boron, adamantine, 224 
Bread, fermented and aérated, 241 


3| Brickwork, exclusion of damp from, 98 


British Association, thirtieth meeting, 3 
Bronze, the age of, 321 
£ relics from the auriferous 

sands of Siberia, 
Building materials, decay and pres- 
ervation of, 
| Butter, means of removing rancidity 
from, 


‘practical effects of, 48 Cadmium, properties of, 206 
Arsenic-eaters, 208 Calcium, new method of preparing, 195 
Arsenic in articles of domestic use, 210/ Calico printing, recent progressin, 71 

‘cS river-water, 210 California, geological survey of, 13 
“presence of in plants, 240 se new mining regionin, 286 
‘¢. jn the larve of insects, 369 | Canna, domestication of the, 364 
Arsenious acid, influence on animal Cannon, improvements in the con- 
tissues, 208) struction of, 44-52 
Artillery, construction of, 50 Capillarity, researches on, 175 
Asteroids, perturbations of the, 407 | Carbonic acid, effects of on the skin, 250 
Astronomical researches, recent, 4) sf ‘¢ new method of pre- 
Atlantic cable, last of the, 124 paring, 217 
Atmospheric dust, composition of, 362 om “ use of in bleaching 
= electricity, origin of, 120| paper-stock, 216 
Ee telegraph, 65 Carbon, sulphuret of, new use for, 218 
Atomic weights, new views respect- | Catalysis, and contact action, 260 
ing, 72 “6 researches on, 256 
Attitudes of the dead, 371 | Caverns, bone, of Europe, 8 
Australia, extinct marsupial animals Cellulose, digestibility of, 239 
of, : in animal tissues, 240 
Cements, new metallic, 211 
Bags, machine for turning, 101| Chameleon, changes of color in, 146 


Barton, Richard, improvement in 
steam engines, 

Bath, new form of, 

Battle-field, science on the, 

Beardmore’s experiments on electri- 
cal conduction, 


90 
53 


a 


Chemical agents producing disease, 256 
es analysis by means of spec- 


tra, 191 

me summary, 222 
'Chemistry, recent progress of, 7 
| Chitine, composition of, 240 


420 INDEX. 
PAGE PAGE 
Chili, astronomical position of the Dura Den, Scotland, fossils of, 342 
coast of, 12 Dust, atmospheric, composition of, 362 
Chloric ether, commercial, 249! “ storms, 40S 
Chloroform, anzsthetic action of, 249| Dyeing, theory of, 212 
Chromeidoscope, the, 147 | Dyes, new, 214 
Chromo-typography, 185 
Chronology, Mosaic, not inconsistent Earth, change in the axis of the, 287 
with geological facts, motion, annual and diurnal, 
Churn, improyed, 94 made visible, 172 
Climate, change of, in different parts <e Ei tc i of at great 
of the earth, 87} depths, 2 
Clock, the ‘** screw,” 88 | Ear th’ s internal structure, possibility 
Coal flora, correspondence of Euro- of studying, 173 
pean and American, 9 Earthquake in New England, 342 
“ formation of New England, age phenomena, 808 
of, 297 | Earthquakes, number of recorded, 308 
“formation of, 839 | Eclipse, solar, of July, 1860, 392 
‘¢ measures,.are they a single for- Eggs, fossil, from the oolite, 04 


mation, 338 
Coal-oil, a pr eseryative of potassium, 214 
ec use. of, 86 
Coal, on the isthmus of Chiriqui, 12 
Coal: -tar, as a disinfectant, 232 
« products obtained from, 231 

ES value of, 231 
Cocaine, a new alkaloid, 252 


Cocoa-nut oil, influence of on the 
blood, 

Coinage, wear of, 

Cold, influence of on seeds, 
“¢. on high mountains, cause of, 

Color blindness, 

Colors, new, used in calico print- 
e Exe tities of, 

Coloring matter of flowers and 


leaves, 254 
Comets, observations on, 401, 406 
Cooking, military, 59 | 
Corn-stalk cutter and shocker, 94 | 


Cretaceous system of Western North 
America, 
Crystal, growth of a, 


Damp, exclusion of from brickwork, 98 
Dead, attitudes of, 371 


Debusscope, the, 147 | 
Denmark, aboriginal inhabitants of, 326) 
Dentifrice, use of sulphur as a, 225 
Dentistry, the art of, 91 
DENTON, Mr. W., on the origin of 


“rock” oil, 306 
Desert of Sahara, topography of, 274 
Dianium, a new metal, 195 
Disease, produced by chemical 

agents, 256 


Disinfectants, use and composition 
of various, 

Dismal Swamp, vegetation of the, 

Dissection w ounds, treatment of, 

Distances, new micrometer for meas- 
uring, 67 

Drains and water-courses, preven- 
tion of obstructions in, 

Drawing and engraving, improve- 
ments in, 

from relief models, 

Drift, flint implements found in, 
** _ of the Triassic epoch, 

Drunkenness, effects of on the off- 
spring, 

remedy for, 


338 | 
225 


lor) 
100 


ac 


67 
330 | 
301 


367 | 


= 272 | 


Fabrics, non-inflammable, 


3 
Electric conduction across water, 121, 122 
by metals, 131 
“peat diy ity, effects of pres- 
sure on, 121 
light, Gassiot’s improved, 108 
"use of for lighthouses, 109 


“ce 


ee “  "Way’s new, 108 
pa cotme sees telegraph, 111 
Electric pile, 120 
‘* sparks, analysis of, 112 
Electricity and magnetism, 116 


atmospheric, requisites for 


investigating, 03 

ae of the torpedo, 113 

ee velocity of, 112 

| Electro-magnetism, weaving by, 118 


_Electro-metallurgy, new application 


of, 
Electrotype work, durability of, 
Element, new metallic, 
Elements, curious numerical rela- 
tions of the, 
probable compound na- 
ture of some, 1 


“c 


Elephants, sw amping of, 366 
Embroidery, Chinese, 82 
2 imitation, 82 
_Embr y ology, new facts in, 356 
of fishes, 355 

ee of the skate, 354 
Emery wheels, vulcanized, 85 
Emmons, Dr. E., Taconic system, 342 
Enamels, photographic, 155 


Engine, Ericsson’s caloric, 27 
Engr avings, new method of copying, 156 
Etna, geological history of the vol- 

312 


cano, 
Eye, ay of seeing the circulation 

149 
369 


n the, 
separation of light’ and heat in, 160 


3 
“ee 


riety for lime i in, 


79 

‘rendering incombustible, 215 

FARADAY on lighthouse illumina- 
‘tion, 


et" the conservation of 


cc 


force, 131 
Faucet, self-measuring, 85 
Fecundity of molluses, 857 
Fermentation and putrefaction, 229 


Pasteur’s researches on, 223 
| Fire- savin’ new, 90 
Fire-proof composition paint, 98 


INDEX. 421 
PAGE PAGE 
Fishes, embryology of, 355 | GuYoT, Professor, on the Alleghany 
< remarkable fossil, 342; mountain range, 7 
Flames, colored, production of, 223) Gypsum, value of as a disinfectant, 233 
Flesh, preservation of, 246 
Flies, parasites on, 365| Heat and water, joint action of on 
Floras, American fossil, 349 different substances, 221 
Fluids, movements of in porous ‘¢ diffusers, action of, 34 
bodies, ** mechanical theory of, 160 
Fogs, dry, <C> solar: 158 
Food, animal and vegetable, rela- Height of the human species, 377 
tions of, . 52| Himalaya mountains, ascent of, 279 
Footprints on sea-margins, how pre- HiTcHcocK, C. H., on the age of the 
served, 314; coal-beds of New England, 297 
Force, conservation of, 160} Hops, extract of, 222 
«¢ Faraday on, 131| HoTcHKIss’ new projectile, 49 
s¢* new cosmical, 135| Human proportions, 377 
Forces, physical, correlation of, 134 ee species, height of, 377 
Forgings, large, 40 | Hy drophone, the, 182 
Fossils, curious accumulation of, 301 
FRANCIS, S. W., copying-machine, 70| Ice, shower of, 176 
Fuel, wet, combustion of, 35| ‘* solution of in inland waters, 185 
Fungi, growth and habits of, 345| ‘* strength of, 176 
Furnaces, action of heat-diffusers in, 34| India-rubber artist, 68 
es for burning wet fuel, 35 [hat ‘* new method of vyulcan- 
Fusible metal, new, 205| izing, 220 
Indigo, decoloration of, 215 
Gas-burners, improvements in, 102 | Ink-spots, removal of, 224. 
Gas-engine, Lenoir’s, 28 | Ink,imperishable, 220 
Gas-lime, depilatory action of, 224 | Insanity. conditions of, 367 
Gas-meters, observations, 86 | Iodine, distribution, 272 
Gases, dynamics of, 138 | Iron, allotropic condition of, 197 
Gearing, frictional, 39} ‘ cast, experiments with, 41 
Geographival positions at the West, “elasticity of, 177 
table of, ~ 410! * forgings, large, strength of, 40 
= researches, recent, 9| ** improvements in the manufac- 
Geological formations, connection of ture of, 201 
successive, 295| ‘* influence of titanium on the 
& speculation, interesting, 340 quality of, 
a summary, 304| ‘* malleable, improved process 
Glaciers, motion of, 305 for preparing, 
Glasses and capsules, method of | §¢ meteoric, remarkable mass of, 307 
cleaning, 223, “ native, on the supposed exist- 
Glue, liquid, preparation of, 91 ence of in Africa, > 307 
Gluten, new application, 217| “ properties of, in powder, 197 
Gold and silver coinage, wear of, 92). 0:§© thin cast, 40 
GRAHAM, Col., on the existence of Ivory trade, the, 77 
tides in the great Amer- 
ican lakes, 167 | Japanese science, 147 
a on the latitude and longi- Jewels, new method of setting, 124 
tude of locations at the West, 410 
Granite, formation of, 279 | Knife, improved pruning, 94 
s¢ use of for architectural pur- 
8' Lakes, American, tides on, 167 


poses, 
Gravitation, influence of light on, 
Grease-spots, removal of, 
Great Britain, vital statistics of, 
Great Eastern, ‘‘ beaching” of the, 
Greece, interesting fossils from, 
Grinding apparatus, new, 
Guano, birds forming, 
Gum, new vegetabie, 
Gun-cotton, use of for filtering cor- 
rosive liquid, 
Gun-metal, experiments with, 
ee improvements in, 
Gun, monster, 
“© Whitworth, new, 
Guns, Whitworth’s and Armstrong’s 
compared, 
Gunpowder, consolidated, 
- experiments 
properties of, 


on the 


135 | Lama, acclimation of in France, 365 
224 Lea, M. Carey, on the relations of 
876 the elements, 192 
23 LENOIR’S gas-engine, 


28 

320 LESLEY, J. P., on the geology of the 
85 White Mountains, 278 
865 Light, absorption of, 149 


ee 


and heat of the sun’s rays, 
| action of on the eye, 


217) chemical analysis by means 
41 of, 191 
54| ‘* influence of on gravitation, 135 
5) DRE loss of by glass shades, 149 
44, persistent activity of, 157 
int. solar; 158 


use of magnesium as a source 


271) _ of, 
Lightning-rods, theory and coustruc- 
59 ‘tion of, 


36 


422 | 


PAGE 
Lime and magnesia, formation of the 


carbonates of, 264 
Liquids, corrosive, filtration of, 217 
Locomotion, improvements in, 82) 
Locomotive truck, improved, Bis- a 

sel s, 

Looking-glasses, poisoning by, 371) 


369 | 
13} 


Lungs, capacity of, 


Magnetic chart of Europe, 
< phantoms, fixation of, 131 
Magnetism and the moon, 130 
EE influence of electr icity on, 116 
Magnesium, employment of as an 


PAGE 
Oil, coal, 
& rock, or petroleum of Pennsyl- 
vania, 805 
Organic matter, determination of, in 
water, 25 
ne ‘¢ oxidation of, 
Organic matters, products of the dis- 
tillation of, 
| oxalic acid in the pie-plant, method 
of treating, 
Oxygen, action of, in a nascent state, 264 
Ozone, production of, by electrical 
incandescence, 


| 


illuminating agent, 203 Pacific, extinction of the aboriginal 
Man, antiquity of, ” 8) races of the, 18 
«geological age of, 826 | Paints, fire and damp proof, 98 
“primeval, reported traces of, 331 ‘¢ “new mineral, 97 
Maps, reduction of, by photography , 154 Painting, miniature and enamel, 74 
Marble, plastic composition in place Paleozoic floras, 304 
97 | Panoramic stereoscopes, 157 
Mercupial animals of Australia, 315 | Paper, copying, 70 
Mauyvé, the new dye, 214); ‘* impervious to water, 222 
Meat, fresh, preservation of, 246; ‘* parchment, 223 
Medicine, application of the physical pipes, bitumenized, 86 

sciences to, 248 | Paper-stock, use of carbonic acid in 
Mental disease, conditions of, 367| bleaching, 216 
Mercury, waves on the surface of, 171 | Parasitic animals, reproduction of, 357 
Metals, “electric and calorific conduc- Parasites on flies, 355 
tion of, 131) Pear], cocoa-nut, 237 

Metal, new fusible, 205 Pearly lustre, process of imparting 
Meteoric phenomena for 1860, 395| to objects, 215 
new theory of the forma- Peat-bogs of Ireland, 350 

tion of, 00| Pebbles. curved and elongated in 
Micrometer, new, 67|_ conglomerates. origin of, 282 
Micrometers, construction of, 156 Pencils, new material for, 223 
Minerals, formation of in the humid Petroleum wells of Pennsylvania, 305 
way, 281} Phonoscope, the, 182 
Mines, arrangements for the dis- Phosphorus, antidote for, 250 


charge of, 
Moa of New Zealand, remains of, 
Molluses, fecundity of certain fresh- 


i 
318 


water, 357 
Moon, influence of on terrestrial 
magnetism, 130 


+ vegetation on the surface of, 381 
Moon’s motion, acceleration of, 406 
Moore’s improv ed car-wheel, 33 
Mountains, causes of cold on, 166 
Muscle-forgetfulness, 3866 
Museum of Comparative Zodlogy at 

Cambridge, 14 
Music, new method of printing, 70 
Musical pitch, uniformity of, 180 

101 


Nails, improved, 

Nebraska, geology of, 300 

New England, interesting palzonto- 

logical discoveries in, 306 

< es synchronism of the 
coal-fields of with those of the 
West, 

Nervous system, peculiarities of, 

Newspaper-addressing machine, 

Nitrogen of the atmosphere, produc- 


297 
866 
84 


tion of ammonia from, 261 

* source of, in plants, 261, 262 
Norway, geological survey of, 18 
Numerica relations, curious, 138 


369 


Ocean, life at great depths in 
; 223 


(Enanthic ether, 


in the animal economy, 368 
Photographs, charcoal, 155 
colored, production of, 159 
new applications 
150—156 
Phy sies, as a branch of the science of 


cee aphy, 


motion, 103 
Pichincha, volcano of, 310 
Pile, electric, new, 120 
Pipes, bitumenized paper, 86 

** new method of joining, 85 
Pitch, uniform musical, 180 
Pleistocene history of Scotland, 319 
Planet, new, ‘“ Vulcan,” 382 
Planets, new, for 1860, 381 
Plants forming peat, growth of, 350 

«sources of nitrogen for, 261, 262 
Platinum and iridium, use of alloys 

of, 92 

“ metallurgy of, 195 

Ploughing machine, new, 95 
Poison, application of for the cap- 

ture of Ww hales, 90 
Poisons in alcoholic spirits, 254 
Poisoning by looking-glasses, 371 
Population, statistics of, 17 
Porcelain, ornamentation of, by pho- 

tography, 

Porous bodies, movements of fluids 

in, 75 
Printing i in imitation of embroidery, 82 

4 of music, new method of, 70 
Putrefaction, products of, ~ 286 


INDEX. 


PAGE 
Pyramid, the Great, why and when 
built, 185 


Quinic acid existing in common 
plants, 


> 


Radicals, organo-metallic, 194 
Rags, blue, bleaching of, 215 
Railway rails, continuous, 30 
= wear of, 31 
Railways, gauge of, 29 
Rain-marks, fossil, 314 
Rattlesnake, poison apparatus of, 368 
Respiration, inquiries into the phe- 
nomena of, 246 
Retina, impressions on, 150 
RODMAN’S new plan of casting can- 
non, 50 
RoceErs, Prof. W. B., on some phe- 
nomena of vision, 150 


Roop, Prof., on the circulation of 


the eye, 149 
Ruffles, machine for making, 81 
Rust spots, removal of, 216 
Sahara, desert of, 274 


Science, influence of, on calico-print- 
ing, 


ce recent applications of, to 


military purposes, 53 
Scotland, pleistocene history of, 319 
Sea-bottom, action of waves on, 172 
Sea-water, absorption of light by, 149 


Sediments, observations on the accu- 
mulation and deposition of, 302 
Seeds, influence of extreme cold on, 352 
Sewage, cost of purifying, 5 
Sewing-machines, statistics of, 80 
Shades, glass, absorption of light by, 148 
Shells, coloring-matter of certain 


fresh-water varieties, 377 
Ships, construction of, 24 
“¢  jron-plated, 23 
Shoe, why it pinches, 83 
Silica, varying conditions of, 279 


‘¢ ~ soluble, industrial applications 


of, 266 
Silver, curious action of, 224 
‘« recovery of from plated-ware, 89 
Silvering organic and metallic sub- 
stances, 211 
Simoon, observations on, 409 
Skate, embryology of the, 354 
Skin, effects of carbonic acid on, 250 
Smells, noxious, effects, 225 
Soaps, improvements in, 219 
Sorghum, new dye from, 224 
Sound, figures produced by, 183 
. intensification of, 182 
< velocity of, 184 
S vibrations of, registering, 183 
South pole, probable climate of the, 11 


Specific gravity, new methods of de- 
termining, q ; 
Species, extinction of, in geological 


173 


time, 296 
Spices, soluble, preparation of, 218 
Springs, hot, 281 
Star catalogues, 4 
Stars, double, 5 


« “ shooting, registration of, by 


photography, 154 


9 
JY 


42 


‘ 4 PA 
Starch, improvement in manufactur- 
Ing 


’ 
“ in the atmosphere, 382 
Statistics of consumption, 376 
of suicide, 376 
“ vitai, 375 
Steam, density and temperature, 
new experiments on, 2 
i use of, expansively, 166 
Steam-engines, Barton’s improye- 
ments in, 26 
Steamboat speed, greatest on record, 24 
Steel, tungsten, 198 
Steel-works at Essen, Germany, 197 
Stereoscopes, panoramic, 157 
Stinks, philosophy of, 225 


Stones, large, how raised by the 


ancients, li7 
Stone-age of man, 822 
Stone-digging machine, 92 
STORER’S experiments on the absorp- 

tion of light by glass shades, 48 
Storms, of dust, 409 
Strychnia, antidote for, 367 


Sugar, a remedy for the effects of 


drunkenness, 272 

- antiseptic qualities of, 2386 

se conversion into alcohol, 252 

Suicide, statistics of, 376 

Sulphur, bleaching by, 214 

= use of, as a dentifrice, 225 
Sulphuric acid, new process for 

manufacturing, 


222 
Sun, observations on, 6, 385, 392 


Sun’s light and heat, 158 
‘* rays, measurement of the 
chemical action of, 158 

Sun-signals, for travellers, 160 


Switzerland,aboriginalinhabitants of. 329 
Systems, geological, lines of separa- 


-tion between, 296 
, Taconic system, new views respect- 
ing, 342 
Tape-worm, nature of the, 359 
Tartaric acid, artificial, 251 
Telegraph, atmospheric, 65 
ee electric light, 1il 
Telegraphs, submarine, new, 127 
Telegraphic apparatus, new, 130 
Telegraphing, submarine, present 
condition of, 126 
Tertiary climate of North America, 350 
Thermometer, Lewis’s self-register- 
ing, 164 
ce metallic, 165 
ss sea-deep, 166 
| Tides in the American Jakes, 167 
Tin ore in California, 804 
Titanium, influence of, on the quality 
of iron, 199 
Torpedo, electrical action of, 113 
Trap-dikes, formation of, 285 


Trees, curious mineral substances 


found in, 170 
Trias, new mammalian fossils from, 302 
| Triassic drift, 301 
Tungsten, influence of, on steel, 198 
| Typography, chromo, 185 
Unionide in the United States, 37 
Uric acid, use of, in calico-printing, 73 


424 INDEX. 


PAGE PAGE 
Vegetable coloring matters, nature of, 254 | Waves, destructive effects of, 172 
Ventilation and health, 68 “on the surface of mercury, 171 
Vessels, iron, new method of clean- Wave-line theory, 19 
ing, 22 | Weaving, by electro-magnetism, 113 
Vitalism, 249| Whales, capture of, by: means of 
Volcano of Pichincha, exploration poison, 90 
of, 310| Wheels, car, the manufacture and 
Volcanoes, conical form of, 812|_ detects of, 82 
Volcanic action in California, 286 | W hiffle-tree, improved, 94 
aG cones and craters, 312) White Mountains, geology of, 278 
Vulcan, LeVerrier’s new planet, 382 | Whitworth gun, The, 49 
Wisconsin, Devonian rocks in, 804 
Wall-laying machine, 92 | Wood, artificial, 63 
Washing-machine, atmospheric, 84) Woop’s fusibie alloy, 205° 
War implements, new, 49' Workmen, mechanical, instruction 
Water, determination of the presence of, 
of organic matter in, 538 Writing-machine, Francis’, 70 
‘* from the bottoms of lakes, 
how procured, 174 Yeast, preservation of, ~ 224 
«hot, action of, on different Yellow, Steinbihl, 215 
substances, 221 
«motion of, when disturbed Zeiodolite, a new mineral paste, 97 
by a vessel, 19 Zinc-melting, by means of gas, 208 
gs purification of, 58| Zine, useful application of the am- 216 
Water-glass and its uses, 266] monio-chloride, 


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Bal FALSE. 


Williams? Works. Guyot*’s Works. 
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Buchanan’s Modern Atheism. 
Cruden’s Condensed Concordance. 


Eadie’s Analytical Concordance, 
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Valuable School Books. 


Works for Sabbath Schools. 
Memoir of Amos Lawrence. 
Poetical Works of Milton, Cowper, Scott. Elegant Miniature Volumes. ’ 
Arvine’s Cyclopzdia of Anecdotes. 


Ripley’s Notes on Gospels, Acts, and Romans. 
Sprague’s European Celebrities. 


Marsh’s Camel and the Hallig. 
Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words. 
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M’Whorter’s Yahveh Christ. E 
Siebold and Stannius’s Comparative Anatomy. Marcou’s Geological Map, U. 8s, 


Religious and Miscellaneous Works. 
Works in the various Departments of Literature, Science and Art. 


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