THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

The late terrible railway accident at Penistone—caused primarily by the breaking of the locomotive crank axle—has called attention to the fact that such breakage is by no means a rare occurrence, although it is seldom accompanied by fatal results. Some slight flaw in the metal, quite invisible on the outer surface, grows by constant vibration into a crack, and this crack eventually is the place of fracture. Although the accident has brought forth an unusual amount of comment by skilled engineers and others, we have seen no reference to a method of detecting flaws in metal which was discovered some years ago by Mr Saxton. He pointed out that a magnetic needle passed along such a bar would be deflected upon coming to a flaw. The method was experimented upon at the royal dockyards, and was found to give most certain results so far as bars of iron were concerned. Whether the system is applicable or not to railway axles, we do not know; but we call attention to the matter, as a possibly useful contribution to the subject under discussion. It is the opinion of many competent men that the above accident would not have been so disastrous if the train had been fitted with an automatic brake. It had what is called a continuous vacuum brake, which is effective enough so long as the coaches do not become separated. When such separation occurs, the wheels are no longer held in check. With the automatic brake, on the other hand, which is adopted by many of the leading railway Companies, the wheels are immediately acted upon, if by any means the coupling between the carriages should be broken. In the accident referred to, the train would with such a brake have been brought to a stand-still before it reached the point where it ran over the embankment.

An influential Committee has been formed with the endeavour to found a fund for the conservation of London antiquities. It seems that during recent building operations in the City, the discovery was made of some massive foundations evidently belonging to an important building of the Roman period. Several of the stones used were fragments of sculpture. These have now been preserved; but they ran a narrow escape of being again buried where they were found. Similar discoveries in the metropolis are by no means rare, and the preservation of such relics should be provided for. The treasurer for the fund is Sir John Lubbock, M.P.

There is a certain region in the United States, reaching from the oil-wells of Pennsylvania to West Virginia, which has become known as the ‘Gas Belt;’ for wherever a well is sunk to a certain depth, the borer is rewarded for his pains by a liberal supply of natural gas, which can be utilised in heating, lighting, and other purposes. It seems that it is only of late years that the commercial importance of this phenomenon has been recognised. The Penn Fuel Company has been formed to bring the consumption of this gas into wider employment. There seems to be but two drawbacks to its use, one being unsteadiness of pressure, and the other a fear as to permanence of supply. The first difficulty might surely be obviated by mechanical means; and the second is hardly worth consideration, seeing that the yield of gas has been constant for many years, and as yet shows no sign of diminution.

A curious experiment dealing with another natural product has lately been made at Acqui by the proprietor of some baths there. This gentleman has at his disposal an inexhaustible supply of hot water from a natural spring, the temperature being a hundred and sixty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. The surplus not required for the baths has been diverted so as to flow through pipes to a garden on the outskirts of the town. Here the warm liquid flows beneath a number of forcing-frames containing melons, tomatoes, asparagus, and other garden produce. The result is that a supply of these delicacies is ready for market at a very early period of the year, and when, therefore, they fetch high prices. Surely this system could be extended with profitable results. Even in this country, far away from active volcanoes, we have hot springs where the experiment could be tried.

It is no new thing to get benefit from volcanic products; indeed, some of these products are of great commercial value. At Vulcano, one of the Lipari Islands on the north coast of Sicily, there is a small factory which was started some years ago by a Scotch firm, where a number of men are engaged in collecting materials deposited continually round the various vents. These products consist chiefly of sulphur, ammonia, and boracic acid.

The introduction of real Chinese birds’-nest soup to Londoners, to which we adverted last month, may raise the question as to what material such nests can be made of. An English naturalist living at Yokohama has lately published a very interesting account of a visit which he paid to Gormanton Caves, which are situated amid the tropical forests of North Borneo. From these caves come the bulk of the nests of which the soup is made, and they are the only place in the world where they can be obtained in any quantity. The caves are of immense extent, and are several hundred feet in height. They are covered with nests, which are built by swallows and bats; the material being a soft fungoid growth, which incrusts the limestone in which the caves are formed. The yearly value of the nests taken is between five and six thousand pounds on the spot. The value when they reach China is of course very much more. It is perhaps as well, considering the expensive nature of the luxury and its scarcity, that the consumption is not likely to increase from its introduction into Britain. To our barbarian palates it is decidedly insipid.

For three centuries, Britain has been able to boast that her adventurous sons have penetrated farther towards the frozen north than the sailors of any other nation. She must now yield the palm to America. The interesting story of the rescue of the six survivors of the Greely Expedition—who at the moment of their discovery were listening to prayers for the dying read by one of their number—is only second in interest to the story of Sir John Franklin, whose fate was for so long hidden in mystery. It seems to be a general feeling that no more expeditions to the frozen regions should be attempted. The barren honour of having arrived at a place so inaccessible that nobody has been there before you, is hardly worth the risk of being slowly starved to death. The Greely Expedition originally numbered twenty-five persons, so that nineteen have perished. This is a heavy price to pay for geographical knowledge however valuable; but of the scientific value of the expedition few details are as yet published.

Lieutenant Brown of the United States’ navy has compiled a long official Report for his government on the progress of the Panama Canal, which is not quite so hopeful as the subscribers would desire. He considers that a great portion of the work accomplished is theoretical rather than practical, and that what has been done has been too costly. He thinks it evident that the scheme cannot be accomplished within the estimated cost nor within the stipulated time. Two leading problems are likely to baffle the engineers—one is, how to dispose of the sixty million cubic mètres of earth which must be cut from the hilly part of the isthmus; and the other is the difficulty of dealing with the river Chagres, which was to form part of the channel. In the dry season, this river is a sluggish stream; but after the rains, it is a foaming torrent carrying everything before it. There is also a probability of an epidemic of yellow fever, which is generally of a fatal type in the district.

In the course of two lectures lately delivered at the Health Exhibition by Dr Cobbold upon the subject of Parasites in Food, some very interesting facts came to light. With regard to parasites, he tells us that the dreaded trichinæ, about which so much alarm was created some years ago in connection with the consumption of foreign pork, cannot live after being subjected to a heat of one hundred and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, which temperature is of course far below that to which meat is subjected in ordinary cooking. Referring to the late mackerel scare, the lecturer said that the entozoa of this fish were perfectly innocuous to mankind whether they were swallowed alive or dead. There are altogether no fewer than fourteen different kinds of parasites which find their home in the mackerel. Speaking of vegetarianism, he said that it was a mistake to suppose that those who eschewed flesh-foods had any consequent immunity from diseases provoked by parasites; on the contrary, the most common parasite known in this country was a vegetable feeder which could easily be received into the system by carelessly washed salads, &c.

A Java correspondent of our contemporary, Nature, relates a curious instance of cannibalism among snakes which came under his notice. He had killed close to his house a snake of very deadly character. Upon examining it some time later he found, protruding from its mouth, the tail of another snake, which eventually turned out to be of the same species and only a few inches shorter than its host. The natives of the place gave it as their opinion that the two creatures had been fighting, and that the victor had swallowed the vanquished. Another correspondent of the same journal tells of a similar case which he saw in India.

It deserves to be placed on record that the University of London have for the first time conferred the high degree of D.Sc. upon a lady. Mrs Sophia Bryant, by whom this honour has been achieved, is the daughter of the Rev. Dr Willock, late rector of Cleenish, Enniskillen, and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. Mrs Bryant has for some time held the position of mathematical mistress at the North London Collegiate School for Girls.

An interesting article upon a very curious subject is contributed by M. C. E. Brown-Sequard to the French journal La Nature. This article takes for its title ‘Attitudes after Death,’ and deals with the numerous instances, on the field of battle and in other situations, where dead bodies have been found—sitting on horseback in one instance, raising a cup to the lips in another, transfixed in the position last assumed when sudden death came upon them. One case is very remarkable. A brakesman on an American railway was shot by a guerrilla, who lay in ambush in a forest through which the train passed. As he was shot, the unfortunate man was in the act of putting on the brake. His body remained fixed, his arms and hands stiff on the brake-wheel, whilst the pipe he was smoking remained between his teeth. It was extremely difficult to make the corpse let go its hold. The writer of the paper points out that this fixture of the body is quite different from the ordinary rigidity of death; and he believes that it depends upon the production of a persistent muscular action, like the fixed spasm often seen in hysterical or paralytic subjects. It is an act of life, but the last one.

For a long time, and more particularly since telephones have come into common use, it has been seen that our telegraphic methods are open to very great improvement. At present, each letter of every word transmitted requires one or more distinct signals, either by right or left deflections of a needle, or, as in the Morse method, by dots and dashes. In Signor Michela’s steno-telegraph, which bids fair to come into very extended use, this difficulty is obviated. It works on the phonetic system; that is to say, the various sounds which go to make up speech—be the language that common to any European country—are grouped into series and represented by certain signs, each word being, as it were, dissected into sound-values. The system is, in fact, that of a telegraphic shorthand. The transmitting instrument consists of two keyboards, each having ten keys, each key communicating with a style on the receiving instrument, which prints a sign representing a particular sound. With such an apparatus, a skilled operator can telegraph words as they fall from the lips of a speaker as readily as a shorthand reporter can write them down. The system has for some time been in use in the Italian Senate, and is now on an experimental trial in Paris. Whether it prove to be the telegraph of the future or not, it most certainly is constructed on a correct basis. We propose shortly to notice it more fully.

An invention which is said to be largely used in America has lately formed the subject of some interesting and successful experiments in London. Introduced by Messrs G. H. Gardner & Co., Southwark Bridge Road, London, it is known as the Harden Hand Grenade Fire-extinguisher, and consists of a glass flask containing a chemical liquid, which, when the flask is broken, emits a copious supply of that enemy to combustion, carbonic acid gas. The experiments were of the usual type—miniature conflagrations being put out readily when a grenade was thrown upon them. The extreme simplicity of the system is one of its chief recommendations; for the flasks, ornamental in appearance, can be disposed throughout a house, and are then ready for immediate use, in case an incipient fire should break out. They therefore take the place of the cumbrous fire-bucket, which is too often, when wanted, found to be empty.

So much has been published relative to smoke abatement in our large towns, and so little has been actually accomplished towards the solution of the problem, that many are beginning to despair, and to believe that the evil must be allowed to continue. Factories, which are the chief offenders, have been to some extent dealt with by law, and are now supposed to consume their own smoke; but the private householder, who contributes no small share of the carbon sent into the atmosphere, has, even if he had the will, been almost powerless in the matter. A stove has just been invented which, it may be hoped, will put a different complexion on the subject. At the back of the grate is a receptacle for the coals, which, by the action of a loose vertical iron plate, are forced forward to be consumed, so that the fuel is partly coked before it reaches the front of the fire. By an ingenious arrangement, the products of combustion are not carried direct to the chimney, but are delivered beneath the grate. This perfect combustion stove is the invention of Mr H. Thompson, of 29 Marquess Road, Canonbury, London.

Most people will be glad to hear that the guardians of our national picture-galleries have at last consented to allow their art treasures to be copied by photography. Why this permission has been delayed so long is strange, for nearly every continental gallery has long ago distributed fac-similes of its contents to willing purchasers. There is one advantage gained in the delay, for by modern processes every touch of the artist’s brush may be faithfully portrayed in the copy, and, moreover, that copy is of a permanent nature. In front of the National Gallery, London, a temporary structure has been erected into which the pictures can be carried to be operated upon in a good light. By this means, a far more satisfactory result can be obtained than by carrying the camera to the pictures as they hang upon the walls.

We some months ago recorded the fact that a prize of five hundred pounds had been offered by Mr Ellis Lever for a new Safety-lamp, which must fulfil certain stringent conditions. The adjudicators—all well-known scientific men—have just reported upon the one hundred and eight lamps which were sent in for competition. Of these, four were electric lamps, no one of which approached fulfilment of the conditions of the award; the rest being oil-lamps. All those which fulfilled the preliminary requirements were experimented upon; and very few indeed remained when the more extreme tests were reached. But none of the lamps really embraced the whole of the conditions enumerated, so the adjudicators felt themselves unable to make the award to any. At the same time, they highly commend two which nearly fulfilled those conditions. One of them is called the Marsaut Lamp; and the other is the contrivance of Mr William Morgan of Pontypridd, which they say presents several good features of marked originality.

The success of the Royal Tapestry Works at Windsor, where so much excellent work is turned out every year, has stimulated others to endeavour to produce a material similar in appearance, without all the costly processes which makes the woven fabric so expensive. In London recently, an Exhibition has been opened of the works of English artists upon a material known as Gobelins tissue. The work is executed with the brush like an ordinary picture on canvas, but with an intention to imitate the work of the loom.

A rare phenomenon in these latitudes, a waterspout, was recently witnessed at Southwold. The wind at the time was changeable, and attention was directed to the strange manner in which certain dark clouds seemed to be driven first in one direction and then in another. At length these clouds united, and their mass formed a clearly defined edge some distance above the horizon. From this edge there suddenly shot down a narrow tongue of cloud, which seemed to strike the sea above five miles from the shore. Swayed from side to side by the wind at first, it gradually grew into an enormous column of water, estimated to be nearly one hundred and fifty yards in diameter, the mass of foam at its base indicating the enormous velocity with which water was being poured from it into the sea. The waterspout remained for twenty minutes, when it disappeared as quickly as it came. It was fortunate that there were at the time no ships in the neighbourhood.

An exhibition of what is called ‘sanitary and insanitary houses’ has been opened at the Health Exhibition. The idea seems to be to arrange two houses, the one as it ought to be, and the other as it ought not to be, and thus to exhibit the two in strong contrast the one to the other, by which an opportunity will be given to visitors, and those who choose to take the trouble to exercise their wits, of gaining instruction upon a point which has never before been brought forward in this manner. The houses are so placed that visitors enter by the ground-floor of the insanitary house, and pass through its various rooms, where all its defects are carefully and plainly set forth; then, on reaching the top-floor, the visitor crosses over to the sanitary house and descends through it.