THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

One of the most important applications of photography is the production of printing-blocks, which, under various names, are in great request for book and newspaper illustration. It is not generally known that some of the finest illustrations which adorn high-class magazines are produced without the intervention of the engraver at any stage of the process. They are photographed direct from drawings, in some cases even from nature; and from the photograph a printing-block ready for the press is produced automatically. Oil-paintings and water-colour drawings can also be thus reproduced with the greatest fidelity. A few years back, this was impossible, for the photograph did not translate the colours in their true tone-relation to one another. Thus, yellow and red would be reproduced as black, while blue would photograph white. All this has been changed by the introduction of what is known as the isochromatic process, by which colours are rendered as a skilful artist working in Indian ink or blacklead pencil would render them.

As an outcome of this capacity of the photographic chemicals, the Royal Academy of Arts has made a new departure in the issue of an Illustrated Catalogue of the principal works exhibited at Burlington House. This is a handsome folio volume, containing one hundred and fifty fac-similes of pictures by Royal Academicians and outsiders. It is not only precious as a work of art, for every touch of the painter’s brush is recognised and reproduced, but it forms a valuable record for future reference. The particular system adopted is that known as the Goupil photogravure process, which is worked by Messrs Boussod Valadon & Company of Paris and London. This firm have published in a similar manner selected pictures from the Paris Salons of the last two years; and we are glad that our Academy authorities have followed such a good example.

Four crematory furnaces are in course of erection at the far-famed Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise, and will be ready for operation in a short time. These furnaces, which have the outward appearance of ornamental ovens, are built on the model of those in use at Rome and Milan. The cost of cremation will be fifteen francs only—to rich and poor alike. It is said that already sculptors and metal-workers are busy in designing and producing cinerary urns for the preservation of the ashes from these furnaces. These vessels will, at the option of the relatives of the dead, be removed to family vaults, or will be deposited in a building which is to be erected by the city of Paris for their reception.

The late discussion in the Times as to the permanence of water-colour drawings has led the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education to appoint a Commission to inquire into the whole subject, under the efficient chairmanship of Sir F. Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy. With him will work several well-known artists. Captain Abney and Dr Russell, who for some time have been engaged in testing the action of light upon pigments, will act as scientific advisers to the Commission.

It is reported that the recent revival of archæological research in Italy is continually being hampered by the extortionate demands of proprietors on whose lands excavations are desirable. It is also alleged that a large trade has been organised in the manufacture of sham antiquities. Senator Fiorelli, the head of the Archæological Department, seeks to put a stop to these abuses by the passage of a law which will place excavations under state supervision and by official permission only. It is also suggested that the smaller antiquities should only be admitted to be genuine after due examination and the attachment of some form of official stamp or seal.

The London Chamber of Commerce have under their consideration the establishment in the metropolis of Commercial Museums, or, as they might be termed, permanent exhibitions, such as are found in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, and other countries. With this view, they have deputed their secretary, Mr Kenrick Murray, to visit the Museums of the chief commercial centres on the Continent. They have instructed him to report to them upon the area of the buildings used for the purpose, their financial organisation and annual expenditure, the number of visitors they receive, and their presumed effect upon the trades of the country in which they are situated. Mr Murray will bear Foreign Office introductions to the Queen’s representatives in the different countries which he will visit, and will, therefore, have every facility for carrying out a most important commission.

The most fearful outbreak of volcanic force which the world has experienced since the eruption of Krakatoa in the Straits of Sunda, has recently laid waste many miles of the fairest part of New Zealand. It is not yet known how many human lives have been sacrificed in this terrible visitation, but it is certain that several Maori settlements have been completely destroyed, and that the country for many miles round the centre of disturbance has been literally devastated. The outbreak commenced at midnight on the 9th of last June with a succession of fearful earthquake shocks. Then, for the first time within living memory, Mount Tarawera suddenly became an active volcano, and belched forth torrents of stones and boiling mud mingled with fire and smoke. The once fertile district is covered with a layer of mud and ashes, so that those who have survived the terrible ordeal have starvation and ruin before them. One minor effect of the disaster will be regretted all the world over by those who have visited or have read of the wondrous scenery of New Zealand. The far-famed pink and white terraces have ceased to exist. These terraces were unique, and had they been known in ancient times, must have been counted with the wonders of the world. Boiling water heavily charged with silica issued from the ground, and as it tumbled over the hillside and gradually cooled in its descent, it deposited its silica as a glittering crystallisation. Mr Froude, one of the last visitors who has written upon the subject, says: ‘Stretched before us we saw the white terrace in all its strangeness: a crystal staircase, glittering and stainless as if it were ice, spreading out like an open fan from a point above us on the hillside, and projecting at the bottom into a lake, where it was perhaps two hundred yards wide.’

This hot-lake district was becoming a great sanatorium, and tourists flocked to it from all countries, for the warm water was credited with wonderful healing powers. From this circumstance alone, it was believed that the district had a great future before it. The Maoris thought not a little of the natural wonders of which they were the stewards, and took care to levy blackmail on all their visitors. All this is now at an end, for the wonders have gone, until possibly new ones are gradually developed in their stead.

Much has been written on the subject of mysterious noises, which in most cases, if intelligently inquired into, would be found to have no mystery at all about them. A Professor at Philadelphia recently recorded that at a certain hour each day one of the windows in his house rattled in the most violent manner. On consulting the local railway time-table, he could find no train running at the hour specified. But on examining another table, which included a separate line, he found that a heavy train passed at the time at a distance of several miles from his house. He then referred to the geological formation of the ground between the two points, and at once saw that there was an outcropping ledge of rock which formed a link of connection between the distant railway line and his home. It was the vibration carried by this rock from the passing train that rattled the window.

Dr Marter of Rome has discovered in many of the skulls in the different Roman and Etruscan tombs, as well as in those deposited in the various museums, interesting specimens of ancient dentistry and artificial teeth. These latter are in most cases carved out of the teeth of some large animal. In many instances, these teeth are fastened to the natural ones by bands of gold. No cases of stopped teeth have been discovered, although many cases of decay present themselves where stopping would have been advantageous. The skulls examined date as far back as the sixth century B.C., and prove that the art of dentistry and the pains of toothache are by no means modern institutions.

The city of Hernosand, in Sweden, can boast of being the first place in Europe where the streets are lighted entirely by electricity to the exclusion of gas. It has the advantage of plenty of natural water-power for driving the electric engines, so that the new lights can actually be produced at a cheaper rate than the old ones.

Although many investors have burnt their fingers—metaphorically, we mean—over the electric-lighting question in this country, it seems to be becoming a profitable form of investment in America. A circular addressed by the editor of one of the American papers to the general managers of the lighting Companies has elicited the information that many of them are earning good dividends—in one case as much as eighteen per cent. for the year. As we have before had occasion to remind our readers, the price of gas in this country averages about half what it does in New York, and this fact alone would account for the more flourishing state of transatlantic electric lighting Companies.

At a half-demolished Jesuit College at Vienna, a dog lately fell through a fissure in the pavement. The efforts to rescue the poor animal led to a curious archæological discovery. The dog had, it was found, fallen into a large vault containing ninety coffins. The existence of this underground burial-place had hitherto been quite unsuspected. The inscriptions on the coffins date back to the reign of Maria Theresa, and the bodies are of the monks of that period, and of the nobles who helped to support the monastery.

In an interesting lecture lately delivered before the Royal Institution on ‘Photography as an Aid to Astronomy,’ Mr A. A. Common, who is the principal British labourer in this comparatively new field of research, described his methods of working, and held out sanguine hopes of future things possible by astronomical photography. Speaking of modern dry-plate photography, he said: ‘At a bound, it has gone far beyond anything that was expected of it, and bids fair to overturn a good deal of the practice that has hitherto existed among astronomers. I hope soon to see it recognised as the most potent agent of research and record that has ever been within the reach of the astronomer; so that the records which the future astronomer will use will not be the written impression of dead men’s views, but veritable images of the different objects of the heavens recorded by themselves as they existed.’

Two remarkable and wonderful cases of recovery from bullet-wounds have lately taken place in the metropolis. In one case, that of a girl who was shot by her lover, the bullet is deeply imbedded in the head, too deep to admit of any operation; yet the patient has been discharged from the hospital convalescent. The other case was one of attempted suicide, the sufferer having shot himself in the head with a revolver. In this case, too, the bullet is still in the brain, and in such a position as to prevent the operation of extraction. In spite of this, the patient has been discharged from hospital care, and it is said that he suffers no inconvenience from the consequences of his rash act. A curious coincidence in connection with these cases is that both shots were fired on the same day, the 19th of June, and that both cases were treated at the London Hospital. ‘The times have been,’ says Shakspeare, ‘that, when the brains were out, the man would die.’ The poet puts these words into the mouth of Macbeth, when that wicked king sees the ghost of the murdered Banquo rise before him. In the cases just cited, we have a reality which no poet could equal in romance. People walking about in the flesh with bullets in their brains are certainly far more wonderful things than spectres. These marvellous recoveries from what, a few years ago, would have meant certain death, must be credited to surgical skill and the modern antiseptic method of treating wounds.

Magistrates are continually deploring the use of the revolver among the civil community, and hardly a week passes but some terrible accident or crime is credited to the employment of that weapon. That it is a most valuable arm when used in legitimate warfare, the paper lately read before the Royal United Service Institution by Major Kitchener amply proved. According to this paper, every nation but our own seems to consider that the revolver is the most important weapon that cavalry can be armed with. In Russia, for instance, all officers, sergeant-majors, drummers, buglers, and even clerks, carry revolvers. In Germany, again, there is a regular annual course of instruction in the use of the weapon. In our army, however, the revolver seems to be in a great measure ignored, excepting by officers on active foreign service.

A new method of detecting the source of an offensive odour in a room is given by The Sanitarian newspaper. In the room in question, the smell had become so unbearable that the carpet was taken up, and a carpenter was about to rip up the flooring to discover, if possible, the cause. By a happy inspiration, the services of some sanitary inspectors in the shape of a couple of bluebottle flies were first called into requisition. The flies buzzed about in their usual aggravating manner for some minutes, but eventually they settled upon the crack between two boards in the floor. The boards were thereupon taken up, and just underneath them was found the decomposing body of a rat.

The extent to which the trade in frozen meat from distant countries has grown since the introduction, only a few years back, of the system of freezing by the compression and subsequent expansion of air, is indicated by the constant arrival in this country of vast shiploads of carcases from the antipodes. The largest cargo of dead-meat ever received lately arrived in the Thames from the Falkland Islands on board the steamship Selembria. This consisted of thirty thousand frozen carcases of sheep. This ship possesses four engines for preserving and freezing the meat, and the holds are lined with a non-conducting packing of timber and charcoal.

A new system of coating iron or steel with a covering of lead, somewhat similar in practice to the so-called galvanising process with zinc, has been introduced by Messrs Justice & Co. of Chancery Lane, London, the agents for the Ajax Metal Company of Philadelphia. Briefly described, the process consists in charging molten lead with a flux composed of sal ammoniac, arsenic, phosphorus, and borax; after which, properly cleansed iron or steel plates will when dipped therein receive a coating of the lead. The metal so protected will be valuable for roofs, in place of sheet-lead or zinc, for gutters, and for numberless purposes where far less durable materials are at present used with very false economy.

It would seem, from the results of some experiments lately conducted on the Dutch state railroads in order to discover the best method of protecting iron from the action of the atmosphere, that red-lead paints are far more durable than those which owe their body to iron oxide. The test-plates showed also that the paint adhered to the metal with far greater tenacity if the usual scraping and brushing were replaced by pickling—that is, treatment with acid. The best results were obtained when the metal plate was first pickled in spirits of salts (hydrochloric acid) and water, then washed, and finally rubbed with oil before applying the paint.

The latest advance in electric lighting is represented by the introduction of Mr Upward’s primary battery, the novelty in which consists in its being excited by a gas instead of a liquid. The gas employed is chlorine, and the battery cells have to be hermetically sealed, for chlorine is, as every dabbler in chemical experiments knows, a most suffocating and corrosive gas. In practice, this primary battery is connected with an accumulator or secondary battery, so that the electricity generated by it is stored for subsequent use. The invention represents a convenient means of producing the electric light on a small scale for domestic use, where gas-engines and dynamo-machines are not considered desirable additions to the household arrangements. The battery is made by Messrs Woodhouse and Rawson, West Kensington.

Mr Fryer’s Refuse Destructor has now been adopted in several of our large towns. Newcastle is the latest which has taken up the system, and in that town thirty tons of refuse are consumed in the furnaces daily. The residue consists of between seven and eight tons of burnt clinker and dry ashes, which are used for concrete and as a bedding for pavement. There is no actual profit attached to the system, but it affords a convenient method of dealing with some of that unmanageable material which is a necessary product of large communities, and which might otherwise form an accumulation most dangerous to health.

After three years of constant work, the signal station on Ailsa Craig, in the Firth of Clyde, is announced, by the Northern Light Commissioners, to be ready for action. In foggy or snowy weather, the fog-horns which have been placed there will utter their warning blasts to mariners, and will doubtless lead to the prevention of many a shipwreck. The trumpets are of such a powerful description, that in calm weather they will be audible at a distance of nearly twenty miles from the station; and as the blasts are of a distinctive character, the captain of a ship will be easily able to recognise them, and from them to learn his whereabouts.

Mr Sinclair, the British consul at Foochow, reports that the manufacture of brick tea of varieties of tea-dust by Russian merchants, for export to Siberia, is acquiring considerable importance at Foochow. The cheapness of the tea-dust, the cheapness of manufacture, the low export duties upon it, together with the low import duties in Russia, help to make this trade successful and profitable. The brick is said to be beautifully made, and very portable. Mr Sinclair wonders that the British government does not get its supplies from the port of Foochow, as they would find it less expensive and more wholesome than what is now given the army and the navy. He suggests that a government agent should be employed on the spot to manufacture the brick tea in the same way as adopted by the Russians there and at Hankow.